Cannock’s hero’s role after the terror attack that shocked the nation – a look back at the West Midlands in the 2000s

It was a sunny Thursday morning in July and Paul Dadge was driving to work.

The former firefighter from Cannock recently started a new IT job in London and took the Tube on his way to the office. He wasn’t too concerned when passengers were told to alight at Baker Street due to a “power outage”. What happened next had a huge impact on his life.

Within a few hours, the 28-year-old from Heath Hayes will see his photo depicting one of the most recognizable heroes of one of the worst terrorist attacks that occurred in Great Britain around the world.

A photo of him helping the “Girl in the Mask” – 24-year-old lawyer Davina Turrell – in the wake of the so-called 7/7 terrorist attack even made the cover of the world-famous Time magazine.

The “power outage” was not a routine electricity problem. The train directly in front of it was blown up by suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan in the Edgware Road Tube, killing six people and himself.

The attack, which took place at 8.50am, was the second of four suicide attacks carried out on July 7, 2005, and was unlike anything that had previously happened in the UK. Less than four years earlier, the world watched in horror as 2,977 people died in the attacks of September 11, 2001, when 19 members of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group hijacked several airliners and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The West’s response was quick – Britain quickly joined the US-led operation to invade Afghanistan, considered a base for Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. The UK also played a significant supporting role during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Our country has been on high alert since 9/11, but the events of July 7, 2005 were the first time a suicide attack of this scale had occurred in Iraq in Great Britain.

Mr Dadge later told the inquest how he found Miss Turrell clutching a mask to her face after she had suffered terrible facial injuries. He described meeting shocked and injured survivors of the attack and setting up a rescue point at Marks & Spencer near the station.

“Medical resources at the scene were limited to two paramedics and a small number of London Helicopter Emergency Medical Services personnel,” he said in a statement read to investigators.

“We ran out of oxygen and dressings and were reliant on first aid supplies from Marks & Spencer and the Hilton Metropole Hotel. Nurses, consultants and even an NHS priest came to the hotel, although I think it’s worth mentioning at this point that it was great, but without medical supplies there was little they could do.”