Police Officer stabbed in the London Bridge terror attack awarded medal for bravery

BY CALUM FRASER
calum@slpmedia.co.uk

A police officer who was stabbed after confronting the London Bridge terror attackers is being awarded a George Medal for bravery.

Charlie Guenigault, of Bexley, was off duty and on his way home from work in Peckham last June when he came across the knife-wielding terrorists.

He started helping victims when the killers turned on him during the rampage where eight people died.

The 27-year-old said: “To be awarded the George Medal is such recognition, it’s an incredible honour, and I am so humbled. Unfortunately some will not get to receive their award in person.

“I hope that I have done my friends, family, colleagues and the nation proud. I would like to thank everyone who has helped me throughout the past year – especially those who helped to save my life.”

The attack took place on June 3 last year when three men drove a van into pedestrians across London Bridge before stepping out and targeting people in Borough Market.

Speaking of the moment he was stabbed, Charlie said: “They went for me. I did what I could to protect my body with my arms.

They got my back then my head, another in the back and the back of my neck. “I started to feel a bit tired – that I might need to get on the ground.

I fell to the floor and was looking up. But I was worried they would finish me off in the chest. So I pretended to die – I looked to the left in the hope they would think they had done enough.

“After a few seconds, nothing else happened so I rolled onto my chest to allow someone to stop the bleeding from my back.

I asked one member of the public to put his knee on my back.

“I asked another to keep me calm, talk to me and keep me awake. Then other policemen put me in an unmarked car and rushed me to hospital.

If we had waited for an ambulance I would not have made it. “I don’t remember feeling much pain. I felt the knife going into my back and head.

But there was so much adrenalin – I was just focused on staying alive.

I am not sure how much blood I lost – but I remember feeling it coming out of my head and pouring down my face and seeping through my clothes.”

He was alert for 90 minutes, during which time a friend from training school, Sergeant Steve Simpson, kept talking to him to keep him conscious.

Charlie was then put into an induced coma. When he woke up he had 17 stitches in his head and neck and still more in his back.

His lower stomach had to be opened up so surgeons could staple his back wounds from the front.

The attackers, Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghbam, were shot dead by the police.