‘I wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive’: 7/7 victim recalls horror of Russell Square terror attack
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Survivors share chilling testimony ten years after three tubes and one bus were targeted by suicide bombers in London. A man on a tube carriage targeted by bombers on 7/7 has recalled the horrifying moments in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Sudhesh Dahad was on his way to work at his job in financial service on Thursday July 7 when London’s day of terror began. Just before 8:50am, he joined other commuters boarding the front carriage of a crowded Picadilly Line train headed eastbound from King’s Cross.
![[Emergency services outside King’s Cross following the attack]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/02/15/GettyImages-53206079.jpg)
But soon after the tube entered the tunnel towards Russell Square Station, the train came to a sudden holt. Germaine Lindsay, also known as Abdullah Shaheed Jamal, had set off a bomb, killing himself and 26 people and injuring more than 340. Recalling the moment the bomb was detonated, Mr Dahad said: “My first thought was that I must be in a nightmare I’m not really here. I couldn’t really make sense of what had happened other than I was still asleep in my bed and this was a nightmare.
![[Three tubes and one bus were targetted by suicide bombers, killing 52 people and injuring over 770 others.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/11/06/09/GettyImages-96345798.jpg)
“And then I realised actually no, I’m not in a nightmare this is real. So, I picked myself up the ground and felt my limbs and face. “I wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive.”. Speaking in a new documentary series about the attacks on BBC Two, Mr Dahad said that after the initial shock, he feared there could be a further attack in the form of a chemical weapon.
“The lights went out the power was completely off,” he said. “I kind of intuitively felt instantly that this must be a terrorist attack. I didn’t know there were 25 people dead in that carriage around me at that time. I just thought well we’re alive.
