A member of staff at a west London college visiting Parliament shortly before the Westminster terror attack says his decision to say goodbye to a friend stopped him being caught “right in the middle” of the atrocity.
David Macaskill was about to walk out of Parliament on Wednesday (March 22) afternoon when he saw a mass of people running towards him, and realised a serious situation was unfolding.
Mr Macaskill, who works in the marketing department at Ealing Hammersmith and West London College (EHWLC) , said if he had not paused to wish a friend farewell he would have found himself in the midst of the attack.
He had been accompanying four students, aged 16, 17, 18 and 21, who are members of Hammersmith Boxing Club which is based at the college’s Hammersmith campus, to the launch of a community boxing event at Parliament’s Thames Pavilion .
He said: “I was about 10 or 15 metres from the door and going towards Westminster station with a colleague.
“The first I knew about it was when a whole load of people started running back past us into the building.
“I didn’t hear any shots, I didn’t hear anything, but I knew something big had happened.
“I followed the crowd and we were herded inside. We were in the Central Lobby, there were hundreds of people there.
“I went up to a Team GB boxer and he said he had seen the whole thing. That a police officer had been stabbed and another police officer had shot the person doing the stabbing.”
Mr Macaskill was soon reunited with the young boxing club students, who had remained inside Parliament with a coach.
They stayed in the lobby until about 5pm before being moved to a bigger room, where they were offered water and snacks by Parliament staff.
They did not leave until 8pm.
Mr Macaskill said: “After the initial chaos everyone was pretty calm. There was a school group singing songs and playing logic games.
“We heard about the car coming across the bridge about 45 minutes later, and then another 45 minutes later the two incidents were being linked together .”
Looking back, he said: “It was surreal, I’ve not been in anything like that before. I’d stopped to listen but didn’t hear anything.
“Then told myself it was best to go with the crowd rather than standing there and headed in the direction that they were going in.
“If I hadn’t turned around to say goodbye to one of the coaches I would’ve been 30 seconds to a minute ahead of the where I was and right in the middle of it.”
The students were at the Commons for the report on British Lionhearts in the Community (BLITC) year one, and the launch of year two.
BLITC was started to get more people in the community involved with boxing and has worked closely with Hammersmith Boxing Club and the EHWLC.
Keep up to date with the latest news in west London via the free getwestlondon app.
You can even set it to receive push notifications for all the breaking news in your area.
Available to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android now!
