A British taxi driver reportedly locked a suspected terrorist in his cab before a bomb detonated inside the vehicle next to a hospital in Liverpool, officials said. The cabbie survived the blast and is being hailed a hero for his actions.
Authorities said the only casualty in the explosion is the male suspect who was killed when his own improvised explosive device detonated inside David Perry’s taxi cab at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Sunday, New York Post reported.
According to British police, the bomb detonation is being treated as a terrorist incident. Moreover, they have arrested four men connected to the crime.
Perry picked up the terror suspect about 10 minutes away from the site of the explosion. The Sun acquired surveillance footage that showed his cab pulling up outside the hospital’s entrance and detonating before the vehicle had even come to a stop.
Seconds after the explosion, Perry is seen stumbling from the driver’s door as smoke and flames billowed from the demolished automobile.
According to Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson, the taxi cab driver managed to lock the doors of the vehicle at some point before the IED exploded so the terror suspect was trapped inside with his own explosive device.
“The taxi driver, in his heroic efforts, has managed to divert what could have been an absolutely awful disaster at the hospital,” she told the BBC News.
Further details as to when, or how, Perry became aware his passenger was carrying the bomb were unclear.
Law enforcement officials said Monday they were still getting a full account from the cab driver.
Perry’s wife Rachel is ecstatic that her husband survived. She wrote in a Facebook post Monday that it was an “utter miracle” her husband was not killed in the blast.
“He is without doubt lucky to be alive. The explosion happened whilst he was in the car and how he managed to escape is an utter miracle. He certainly had some guardian angels looking over him,” she proclaimed.
The heroic cabby required medical treatment at a hospital for burns and shrapnel wounds prior to being released, the Post reported.
David Perry reportedly locked the doors of the smoking taxi with the terrorist inside, preventing his escape. (Facebook)
Rachel said her husband was “doing ok but is extremely sore and just trying to process what happened.”
Three men in their 20s were arrested elsewhere in the city under the Terrorism Act on Sunday, and a fourth was detained Monday in relation to the attack.
None of the suspects have been publicly identified and their affiliations have not been disclosed.
Investigators haven’t ruled out a possible link to the UK’s Remembrance Sunday honoring its war veterans, since the incident occurred just before 11 a.m. that day, the Post reported.
“Although the motivation for this incident is yet to be understood, given all the circumstances, it has been declared a terrorist incident,” said Russ Jackson, head of counterterrorism policing in northwest England, at a press briefing.
