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London attack: Student nurse tells taxi driver who warned her about terrorists, 'I owe you my life'

'I just want to say thank you, whoever you are, thank you so much,' Rhiannon Owen tells mystery saviour

Jon Sharman
Monday 05 June 2017 19:47 BST
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"I owe you my life", London Bridge bystander tells hero cab driver

A student nurse said she owes her life to a taxi driver who swerved to warn her about an approaching assailant during the London Bridge terror attack.

Rhiannon Owen, 19, said she was standing on Borough High Street when a passing cab driver yelled at her to “run now”.

Turning, she saw one of the three attackers wielding a “huge blade” and was able to flee the killer, who along with two accomplices murdered seven people on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market.

“I was standing by a cash machine, over by there and everyone was just running," she said. "And I was on the phone to my boyfriend and I said, 'Why is everyone running?'

“And this taxi driver pulled up, swerved towards me and screamed, 'Please run, you've got to run now! Get back, get back!'

“I turned around and I just saw this man with this huge blade and I just ran as fast as I could.

“There was sirens everywhere, people screaming, the glass was smashed in one shop. There was a guy, he was injured. I just ran.”

Addressing the driver directly, she added: “I don't know who you are but I owe you my life. I could run away because you said that. I just want to say thank you, whoever you are, thank you so much.”

Even as one of the attackers followed behind her, she called out to others to run away. She slipped into a pub where she hid upstairs with 40 others.

Describing the scene outside Applebee's, where she took refuge, Ms Owen said: “It was horrible, horrible. People were screaming and crying.

“Emergency services everywhere, blue flashing lights, armed police on every metre of road - it was completely packed.”

Asked if she saw anyone with injuries, she said she saw a man “bleeding out”.

“The window was smashed and he was on the floor and he was screaming - I think he had been a victim of the stabbing,” she added.

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