One of the London Bridge terror survivors has spoken out about the attack, with her boyfriend describing how the jihadi who cut her throat screamed “This is for Allah!” as he struck.
Thirty-one-year-old Candice Hedge, originally from Brisbane, Australia, was working at Elliot’s Café in Borough Market when Pakistan-born Khuram Butt, Moroccan-Libyan Rachid Redouane, and Moroccan-Italian Youssef Zaghba burst in.
In an interview from hospital with Australian television network Channel 7, Candice described seeing the killers stab a customer while she was huddled in a corner before one of them came up behind her.
“He looked at me and I looked at him, it really happened so quickly,” she recalled. “It was one quick go and that was it. I was vomiting blood.”
Boyfriend Luke, who was also working at the café on the night of the attack, said the jihadis were “strutting around as if they owned the place”, shouting: “This is for our family, this is for Allah! Stop living this life!” as they attacked.
Candice said: “I was just thinking, ‘I don’t want to die. I want to get through this,’ – and I wanted to get out of there as well. I wanted to get to safety.
“I’m just trying to channel calm, I’m lucky to be here. It’s not really a lucky situation, but considering what happened it’s pretty amazing. I’m thankful.”
Candice’s attacker stabbed her in the throat. The blade barely missing the main artery of the neck, vocal cords, and windpipe, allowing her near-miraculous survival.
“I could feel the amount of blood and it was warm on my hand,” Candice remembered.
“I could see how much it was and, you know, you see horror movies – it was like that. I was thinking for a moment that I wasn’t going to make it.”
Butt, Redouane, and Zaghba murdered eight people and injured at least 48 others after ploughing through pedestrians in a hired van on London Bridge, before springing out and storming nearby pubs and restaurants, stabbing indiscriminately.
Amazingly, every victim who made it to hospital was saved despite many having “critical” wounds.
The Evening Standard was told that trauma surgeons in the capital have become expert in dealing with “penetrating injuries” due to the knife crime epidemic which has ongoing since allegedly “racist” police stop-and-search powers were kerbed in 2015.