'London 7/7 bombings had a massive impact on me'
BBCA man who was caught up in the 7/7 London bombings has said he will be thinking of all the victims on the 20th anniversary of the attacks - describing his experience as "horrendous".
Mark Higgs, from Worcester, was a control room manager responsible for engineers working on the underground when four co-ordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamist extremists targeted commuters travelling on public transport in the capital.
He said the events of 7 July 2005 remained etched in his mind ever since.
"It was just awful - I felt like screaming and running away, but of course you couldn't," he said.
A total of 52 people were killed and nearly 800 injured, in the deadliest attack in the UK since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 near Lockerbie.
Mr Higgs, who is now retired, was one of the people who had to evacuate the entire underground after the bombs went off.
"At first we thought it was a power supply problem - but then we realised it was far more serious than that," he said.
"We had no idea what was going on at first - then someone said to me 'we've got people self de-training', in other words running on to the actual tracks.
"That was massive for us. It wasn't until we saw people with blackened faces and smoke billowing out from under the tunnels that we realised just how bad it was.
"Then we were told that it was a terror attack. When I got that call it was just horrendous.
"I felt vulnerable. I thought, 'when is this going to end, is the whole system going to be blown up?'
"It was really scary and worrying."
Mr Higgs spent the next month working constantly, to help get the underground back in good order - and said on the 20th anniversary he would be thinking of everyone who was caught up in the atrocity.
"The people who worked on the underground were just brilliant - everyone had a job to do, and they did it," he said.
"I don't think I came home for three or four weeks afterwards, and when I did I was exhausted.
"I've thought about it a lot since. Before the attacks you felt like no-one would ever do something like that. But they can, and they did.
"That stuck around in my mind for quite some time. It had a massive impact on me, for those people going to work that day, who never went home, it must have been awful."
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