A man who remains in critical condition has been thanked by the mother of the young woman he protected during the knife attack that took place on the 6.25pm Doncaster to London King’s Cross service on Saturday night. A number of people on board stepped in to stop the man who made his way through carriages, attacking passengers. Witnesses revealed they first believed the screaming was a bad Halloween prank until it became evident that an attack was happening.
One young woman, Maisie Harrison, was almost stabbed as she unsuspectingly listened to music through her headphones, but someone stepped in to save her. An older man jumped in front of Maisie to save her, suffering stab wounds to the head and neck, as revealed by one eyewitness. Maisie’s mother, Dawn, took to social media to thank the man who saved her daughter from being stabbed, and said that she “owed everything” to him.
In a post on Facebook, she wrote: “Prayers for a full safe recovery to the hero of a bloke who jumped in front of my daughter and saved her life!”
Olly Foster, a witness who saw the man saving Maisie, said that he assumed there was a bad Halloween prank going on when he first heard, “Run – there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone.”
Police are looking into whether the knifeman, who was born in the UK, was known to police before. He moved through two carriages as he attacked passengers, eventually reaching Carriage G where he was finally stopped.
It was an LNER buffet worker who managed to stop him. The worker now remains in hospital in serious condition. A spokesperson said that CCTV shows the man’s heroic act of bravery, saying that he “undoubtedly saved many people’s lives”.
19-year-old witness Witness Thomas McLachlan told the BBC: “I heard the words “he’s been stabbed” and I saw the panic spread among the faces of the people of the carriage. A couple of minutes after that, the train pulled into Huntingdon, and I saw loads of other passengers getting off absolutely drenched in blood.
“There was one man clutching a white sheet to his head who looked like he was stabbed twice. [There were] really severe injuries. And there was just general fear among everyone involved.”
