BMA medics 'used bits of bus to help 7/7 victims'

Doctors from the British Medical Association struggled to treat stricken victims of the 7/7 bus bombing because there was no medical equipment at their own headquarters, an inquest heard today.

Instead, they were forced to use table cloths, jackets and ties as bandages for horrifically wounded passengers who lay dying in London's Tavistock Square.

Lacking vital instruments, they adapted "bits of bus" and windows from the double decker to create make-shift stretchers in a bid to save lives.

More every-day items were grabbed from the British Medical Association (BMA) canteen, the inquest heard.

Dr Anthony Everington, a GP and former BMA deputy chairman, arrived on the scene less than a minute after the explosion.

Though he and colleagues battled to help the injured, the circumstances were "not ideal", he said.

Meanwhile orthopaedic surgeon Dr Awani Choudhary described tending to Gladys Wundowa, who was blown from the bus suffering massive internal and spinal injuries.

He held her head in his hands and comforted her for six or seven minutes before she was carried into the BMA courtyard on a bus window.

Though he wished for an orthopaedic stretcher, the doctor told the inquest: "That was the second best alternative."

Mrs Wundowa, 50, from Ilford, Essex, who worked as a cleaner at University College London, died around an hour-and-a-half after suicide bomber Hasib Hussain detonated his homemade device.

Hussain, 18, killed 13 innocent people when he blew himself up on a number 30 bus on July 7, 2005.