Nurse Zaid Al Hussen spent Friday afternoon in the library at the Royal Institute of Technology. When he came out into the street, he witnessed the blue double-decker bus plowing into a bus shelter where people were waiting.
"I see the bus crashing straight in and just continuing forward. I was in shock and heard people screaming and crying," he says.
Instinctively, he threw away the crutches he was using because of an injured foot and ran to the scene of the accident. There he saw an injured man bleeding profusely. He was helped to lay the man down and applied pressure to the wound to stop the flow of blood while he waited for the ambulance.
"I happened to be there and tried to help and, thank God, I succeeded. I'm grateful for that," says Zaid Al Hussen, who was praised by police and ambulance personnel for his actions.
Divided feelings
It is with mixed feelings that he thinks back to Friday. Amid the chaos of dead and injured people, he saw several people pick up their phones and film the accident and the victims.
Please, if you come to an accident scene, try to help if you can. I understand that it may be difficult, but try anyway. And please, please, don't film. Think of the victims, think of their families.
Linda Contreraz-Elffors, also among the first on the scene, helped a shocked woman who barely managed to escape the oncoming bus.
She was panicking. I took her hand and held it. Then I put her against a railing that was there and tried to breathe with her. Right in front of me there are bodies on the ground, she tells Expressen .
Flowers left
Mohsen Forghani, an instructor for a group of bus drivers who are being trained to start driving a new route, visited the accident site and laid flowers along with several colleagues.
"We thought that when we are here, we should leave a flower and honor the victims and those affected," he says.
