EP 021 Travis Frain Surviving The Westminster Bridge Attack 22.3.17

About Travis...

"Since sustaining injuries in the Westminster Bridge terror attack on 22nd March 2017, Travis has spent the years following campaigning for the rights of victims of terrorism to improved support from the state, and has committed to doing what he can to play a small part in preventing future attacks. He co-founded the pressure group Survivors Against Terror in 2018, was awarded a Young Leaders in National Security Fellowship by the Counter Extremism Group, and is currently studying for a PhD in the history of Islamist ideology at Edge Hill University. He currently serves as the National Chair of the Counter Terrorism Youth Advisory Group, and is a member of the advisory board of the National Emergencies Trust and several other charities. In January 2023 he was given the British Citizen Award (BCA) by Parliament in recognition of his work.”

Twitter @travisfrain

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travisdfrain/

Security Circle ⭕️  is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

Yoyo 0:15

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. If poe is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, we want to thank all of our listeners around the world. Thank you for listening we're dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and wellbeing. With me today is Travis Frame. Travis is a survivor of the 2017 Westminster Bridge attack in which four people were killed when a car was driven into pedestrians. Since then, Travis has become a prominent campaigner for educating society on the dangers of terrorism, and founded the Resilience in Unity Project, which seeks to record and amplify testimonies and educate society on the risks from terrorism. Travis recently received the British Citizen Award for services to volunteering and charitable giving for the January, 2023 role of honor. First of all, Travis, thank you so much for spending time with us today on the security. Thanks for inviting me and thanks for having me. Well, congratulations, first of all on your British Citizen Award, and we'll come back to that in a minute. But it all started, didn't it, quite a long time ago now, on the 22nd of March, 2017. So take us back to that day. What do you remember about that morning? Just being an ordinary morning. Sure. Well, I mean, to be honest with you, it was far from an ordinary morning anyway, actually, because I was, for start, I was in London and I'm not from London by birth or by living. I'm actually from Shire north West. I can tell by that accent's not a Southern one, is it? Yeah. it catches on of it, doesn't it? Yeah, it doesn't take much to to catch it, but I I was in my first year actually studying at Edgehill University which also is in Shire, about half an outside Liverpool. I was in my first year, I was 19 years old and I was studying in history with politics and it was with politics side of the course that we'd been invited down to London actually for this three day trip. It was paid for by the university and you know, we were sort of getting to that time of year where I guess first year university you don't do much in the way of paying attention until about six months in. So we were at that stage and it was a thing if nothing else, of course it had the academic side of things, but if nothing else, it was three days down in London with your friends. Before, of course, when we got back, it'd be that time year when we had to start cracking on with exams and things. So we jumped at the opportunity and We actually on the first day of the trip on the 21st, we actually arrived down in London. Incredibly late. I think we were stuck on a bus in traffic coming down for about, I think it must have been close to six or seven, maybe even eight hours on this bus. So by the time we got down to London we pretty much just checked into the hotel and headed straight to the pub to get a couple of drinks. but that morning of the 22nd we got up, we were up pretty early actually. And we were pretty much in house the parliament from, I guess, I think it was like seven half, seven onwards in the morning. And we had a full day's worth of activities planned. Even more important now, of course, given we'd missed the first day. And we had a tour parliament. We met with some staffers for the mp for Blackpool. We had lunch with a member of the House of Lords and then, Going into the afternoon at about two o'clock ish, we had a meeting in the books with Rosie Cooper who was the MP for our local area where our university was. And we've been in this meeting, it was an hour long meeting. We've been in this meeting for about half an hour. And some sort of emergency vote was called in parliament. So she had to go and run off and vote on it. And and sadly of course had to cut the meeting in half. As I said, this was about half two in the afternoon and so we were left with half an hour in between meetings with, you know, essentially nothing to do. And we were a group of about 16 of us, including the lecturer. And we all decided to split up into separate groups, you see, and just do what we could, I guess, in the way of sort of sight scene or, you know, whatever we wanted really for that half an hour. Cause it wasn't really enough time to get out and do some proper sight scene, but at the same time give them a quite a jump packed trip. We wanted to do what we could. So one part of the group went to the House Commons Cafe and just decided to get a coffee and sort of, you know, chill out and wait for the next meeting. The problem of course was that, you know, even if we tried to do some site scene, we had to leave Parliament Security and then go back through. So really we were limited on time. Another group went off, I believe, to do a bit of shopping and then myself and about four of the lads just decided to, as I said, try and get a bit of fresh air, do some sight scene, whatever we could in that time. So we actually left Parliament, through the front gate. And we took a right and we studied walking along Westminster Bridge, which is of course, when the attack happened. We left Parliament and on the way out I took a picture, actually a big Ben on my phone and I sent it to a friend and I was texting them cause of course they were asking why I was down in London. And as I was walking and texting them, we'd got about a third of the way along Westin Bridge. And I was still texting one of my friends when one of the lads in my group sort of shelter some along the lines of like Mac or Travis Lookout. And of course when I looked up from my phone and looked in front of me the terrorist was, was driving a four by four like an SUV vehicle straight towards us. And obviously I, I had no time whatsoever to react. Now the police reckon when he hit myself and my friends, he was driving the car at about 46 miles an hour. But they think he got up to about 72 miles an hour points on the bridge, which is pretty remarkable if he considered, you know, the sheer sort of small amount of time. And it just shows, you know, the sort of intention that he had to cause as much destruction and, and pain and suffering as possible. And he'd mounted the pavement at the other side of the bridge and he'd sort of, come on and off the pavement, dodging cars and trying to hit pedestrians. And as he got to our group, he was remounting the pavement, so he was revving the engine and he was, you know, increasing his speed. Now the injuries we sustained were almost entirely dependent on whereabouts we were, stood on the palin. So because I was stood a bit closer to the road and the palin still on the PA itself, but a bit closer to the road rather than the river ended up taking the brunt of the impact. And I was thrown of the bonnet of the car. I sort of hit the windshield and then was thrown into the air and. I always say this cause it's so hard to describe, but I think it's really important. Felt like forever that I was in the air. And obviously it could have only been literally like a split second, but I just remember feeling like I was in the air for ages. And I realized when I was in mid that I'd been sort of flipped over because of course we were walking away from Parliament and now all I could actually see whilst I was in the air was I could sort of see the sky above me and at the corner of my eye I could see Big Bend. So I'd literally been flipped over in made and of course then I, I came back down and I hit the concrete and it was hitting the concrete that probably caused the majority of the injuries are sustained. After he hit us with the car, the terror carried on driving. He crashed into parliament into the fence outside parliament. And then he got out on foot with knives on his hand and tried entering parliament. And he sadly stabbed and killed a police officer and was then shot by one of the minister's bodyguards that was on duty outside Parliament. Now on the bridge, of course, we, you know, had no knowledge whatsoever of what else was happening at this time. Outside of simply what had affected us. And I'll be entirely honest with you, my first, you know, I guess perception of it was not terrorism. It's difficult to imagine, I guess. But I had no knowledge of terrorism itself apart from what I'd seen on the television. This was not an area I worked in or studied. And quite frankly, not that it's any excuse, but we hadn't really experienced the same level yet by this point of vehicular attacks that the rest of Europe had. You know, we had the the incident with Lee Rigby, which I guess you'd call a vehicular attack, but for the most part, attacks and plots in the UK had been you know, bomb related or other sort of means. So my first assumption was that this was just some sort of, you know, some sort of drunk driver. We'd lost control of the car or something. But it did not hit long whatsoever to realize there was something more going on here. I mean, the simple fact that the car had carried on ongoing and was not even in sight, you know, it was long gone. The fact that so many people had been injured. And also I think the fact that within about 30 seconds of the car hitting us, you could hear gunshots ringing out in Parliament. You knew. There was something bigger going on here. And of course you didn't know the scale of it. There could have been multiple attackers, there could have been anything happening in that moment. But we did know that, there was something much more insidious happening here. Now, after I'd hit the concrete you had to come back down from the sky if you'll, after being hit by the car. The only reason the doctors made it pretty clear to me afterwards, the only reason that I survived was because my head landed on the stomach of one of the other lads in my group who'd been knocked to the ground already. He was just sort of stood in front of me, the lad in my group, and he sort of got a glancing blow from the car. He was hit by the wing mirror and that knocked him to the ground. And when I came back down and landed on the concrete, my head landed on his stomach. So, back comparison. Everything else on the left side of my body, which I landed on that hit concrete with fractured, and the doctors made it pretty clear that had my head hit the ground with the same amount force, it would've been either, you know, death on impact. death within a few minutes of the attack. But because my head landed on this lad stomach actually didn't even lose consciousness. And I got up immediately afterwards you know, call it sort of shock or adrenaline maybe. But I got to my feet and I remember sort of being in this really bizarre autopilot mode where I felt two things. That's all I could think of in my mind. Two things, one, well, I said actually I guess three, but the first two, which were bizarrely the most important to me at that time was one, I need to get my phone back because of course my phone had been in my hand when I was hit by the car. And the other was that I need to get my shoes back because the car had hit me with that much force that my shoes had flown off in mid air. So I started walking up and down the, you know, the sort of, the bit of the bridge that was near us and saw the range of, you know, fatalities and, and injuries that had been sustained. Clicked my phone, clicked my shoes. Wasn't really aware of injuries I'd sustained at this point. I mean, it was pretty obvious I had sustained some injuries. I was in a bit of pain, but again, the adrenaline sort of blocks out most of it. But also just the simple fact that I knew I'd been hit by a car for Gods sake. There was gonna be some sort of injuries that sustained, you're not get away from that unscathed. But for the most part, I, I was pretty, you know, Un un worried I should say, about any potential injury that sustained because they weren't visible, they weren't aware and obviously in shock. I was walking around and I was okay otherwise. And I, first thing I did when I got my phone, I rang the guys who were in parliament still the group that went to the cafe to try and warn them. Of course, not knowing that the attack had already been stopped with the gunshots. For all I knew those gunshots could have been from the terrorist. And I tried ringing them to warn them. And as you might imagine, that conversation didn't go well because they thought I was taking the mick. You try ringing someone and said that there's been some sort of attack that you're injured and that it's coming their way. For the most part, people just don't take you seriously. And I probably said some pretty choice words down the phone to them to try and kick them into action, but inevitably obviously they didn't take me seriously at the time. And then I also rang my mom quite soon afterwards as well. I wanted to let her know what had happened. And I think, to be honest with you, that's probably one of the best decisions I made to this day because naturally War Westminster Bridges, it's one of the most heavily populated, or I should say heavily publicized areas, if not in the UK than in the world. And there were pictures of this and of those plastered over social media and other platforms instantly after the attack. So to let her know, as far as I was aware, I was okay. I was relatively uninjured. And just, you know, to sort of give her a heads up before it made it to the news, probably one of the best decisions I made. But it was after I'd made that phone call that we began to realize in the, the chaos of the aftermath that one of the people in our group was actually missing. Now we had no idea what had happened. He was there, you know, one second before the car hit us. And then with the blink of an eye, he was gone. And the next second started looking around, as I said, walking up and down the bridge trying to find him. People were shouting that someone had gone over, someone had been thrown into the Thames and we were looking over the side of the bridge. we couldn't see him or anyone for that matter. Fortunately, we did find out a few hours later that he'd simply been separated from us in the chaos of the aftermath. And and he was found, you know, miles and miles away in Vox Hall. And he had no idea how he even got there. But in the sort of, I guess, you know, again, in shock of what had happened and seeing us in a pool of blood on the ground, he'd of course like me got into autopilot mode. That said someone had actually been thrown over to the, into the attempts and suddenly they did die cuz they drowned. And as well as the injuries are sustained and I think, you know, I say it very often, but for me, That is where I always say I was incredibly lucky with this and literally with every aspect of this, where we were stood on the bridge, I mean, just behind us and slightly to the right, was that lady who, because she was slightly closer to the, to the river's edge of the bridge, she was then thrown by that force of the car hitting her, and landed in the tens, just in front and slightly to the left of us. A lady was, I believe she sort of stepped into the road briefly, or she was closer to the road than we were on the pavement. And when she was hit by the car, she was then thrown under a bus that, of course, then killed her. So we were, you know, right in the middle of this. And, and of course we're incredibly lucky to come out of this with our lives, but, you know, in that immediate moment, we just did not know you know, where this was gonna go. Now one of the lads in my group, the one that I'd landed on, actually, he, got a bad laceration to his forehead, as I say, had been hit by the wing mirror. And he had this cut on his forehead and the blood was beginning to run into his eyes. He couldn't see properly, and we started to panic. So we tried stemming the bleeding to his forehead. and in doing so, I tried taking off my, to, you know, apply pressure. I got it over my right arm, fine. And I went to take it over my left arm. And that's when I realized the first injury that I, I became aware of actually, and it was to my hand because I looked down at my left hand and noticed that each of the fingers on that hand, apart from the thumb were all quite badly broken and twisted out of place. The, you know, they were bent backwards. They were bent inwards, you know, it, they were pointing in pretty much every single direction or from the way they should be. and I quite literally couldn't physically get the sleeves of my coat over my hand. And of course that was a pretty grizzly injury. Pretty, you know, pretty nasty to look at. But in the grand scheme of things, it was still a pretty minor injury. But about 10 to 15 minutes after we'd been hit by the car, the adrenaline started to run out and I couldn't really tell you exactly what at the time, what injuries I had. I didn't know of course, but I knew something, something was a bit more serious. The blood started sort of rushing into my head. I, I couldn't really see properly, my eyes it just felt, you know, like very bright lights. And I knew for whatever reason, I knew I had to lie down on the bridge. And I let down with my back against the parapet of the bridge. And of course the paramedics have start to arrive. The police has start to arrive. They asked us if we if we could walk. And of course, up until this point we've been moving people onto other moving people, paramedics onto other people that have been injured because we. Weren't really sort of all aware of the injuries we'd sustained. And we just sort of figured, well, you know, there's someone screaming over there. There's someone who's obviously very very visibly, much more injured than we are over there, deal with them first. But by this point I was pretty aware that I couldn't walk because why they were asking us to walk, because just across the other side of the bridge actually for those that aren't aware of it directly opposite parliament. On the other side of the Thames is St. Thomas Hospital. So there's a hospital literally there at the other side of the bridge. And what they were doing is they were walking Guinea wounded that they could to a hotel next to the hospital to act as a staging area for doctors who were running onto the bridge from the hospital. So my friends were taken over there and they were walked over there to the staging area. But naturally I just knew at this point that I couldn't walk had a lot of pain in my in my sort of lower back and, and in my legs, and I wasn't sure why. And of course the doctor started to started to try and, you know, figure out what was, what was wrong with me. And, and naturally again, it seemed that I was stable though. So as much as they were treating me, they were also trying to coordinate, you know, by putting different sort of trauma tags on the different people present and try to prioritize which people needed the most assistance quickly. And it was during this time I didn't realize this at the time, but of course haven't read, you know, court records and things and, and testimonies from the paramedics that actually started to go quite gray in the face. I started to go quite pale started shaking uncontrollably. I do remember that because I remember how just bizarre it is. I just started shaking as if I was really cold. And, and they realized I was obviously going into some sort of shock and, and I must have some kind of bleed somewhere. So they led me down. On the bridge, they started cutting open my, my pants and my clothes to try and find where this bleed was. You know, and, and doctors and sort of police were holding blankets over me and things to try and retain a bit of dignity. And and a, they found a laceration at the top of the left leg. Again, I will say I'm incredibly lucky because as I say, you'll, you will get tired of me saying that phrase, but it is true. I wasn't incredibly lucky because that laceration was essentially, I think they said about half an inch from the artery in the left leg. So again, I got really lucky cuz had it nicked the artery that bleed would've been much more serious and probably fatal actually. Instead they were able to, of course, pack the wound, get me on a stretcher and get me into the back of a an ambulance. Now that wound, they said, was probably essentially a sort of shrapnel wound. It probably came from like the sort of blast and, and bits of metal and things off the car when I was hit by it. Pretty soon after that I was taken to hospital, taken to King's College Hospital which was a major trauma center. And when I got there, I was treated incredibly well by all the doctors and nurses. They were surrounding me. And, you know, I had tons of people working on me at any one time. And I remember I arrived and they basically just looked at me and they said they essentially just said, lie there and let us do our job. And, you know, they manhandled me and everything and they were moving me around. But they knew what they were doing and, you know, they were incredibly well trained. And on that first day of the of the attack on that first day in hospital after the attack I had tons and tons of scans, cts, MRIs, et cetera, to find out what injuries I had. And I also had to have, My first sort of procedure, if you will, in the local anesthetic on my left hand, because each of those fingers as well as the hand itself each of the fingers by the thumb was fractured. But of course, in addition to being fractured, they were all now bent outta place. So before they could put it into cast, they had to reset each of these fingers into the right place. So as you might imagine, no amount of local anesthetic or pain killers or anything made any difference to that, and that was honestly the most painful thing I've ever experienced. And they had to reset each finger into place and then put it in a cast. At the same time they finished doing the scans. They of course saw up the, the laceration at the top of my left leg and they, they discovered that I'd fractured my left leg in two places as well. One of these was quite a minor fracture that could be pretty easily healed just by wearing a caste for a bit. But the other one had torn a ligament so it wouldn't need metal work in it. And I had that operation a couple of days later as well. And that was under general anesthetic. It put a, a screw into my leg to repair it. And I was at a hospital in about eight days afterwards. Spent about five months on crutches and then another month after that on a walking stick, and roughly about two years in and outta physiotherapy. And that, you know, I guess to give you a bit of a tour of force was my experience with terrorism. I mean, Travis, I feel like immensely privileged to just listen to your account, so thank you very much. I definitely get a sense that this has been a life-changing experience, to say the least. How, how has your life been shaped since this happened? Well, it's a great question cuz, you know, very early after the attack, and I guess probably in that first year or two afterwards, I I found myself very conflicted. You know, about sort of how I processed what had happened to me. I think naturally, you know, as a society after attacks, we hear a lot from politicians and other people about sort of these, these, these buzzwords and these lines about how we, we can't let terrorism changes and things like that. And I understand the need for that as a society, but as an individual I found it incredibly hard. To not admit the attack had changed me. and in many ways I've been more concerned about people who perhaps pretend that such an incident doesn't change them because, you know, it is a very unnatural incident. No one should ever have to experience something like this. And I think naturally you know, your body should respond to it in a way that is perhaps unorthodox because this is what the incident is. It's not natural. And I, I felt, you know, I, I felt sort of torn in many ways. I felt that I didn't want to forever for the rest of my life be talking about these issues and be known as the guy who'd been in that terror attack. And that's very difficult when you come from quite a small town where I'm from where this is probably the one and only time they've ever heard the word terrorism. And of course the local papers plastered it everywhere forever. But at the same time, I naturally felt like I needed to learn more about these issues. I needed to know more about what had happened to me, why it happened to me, you know, sort of what the ideologies were that were, you know, I guess, fueling these sort of incidents but also to know what it is that we're doing as a society and as a sort of state to, to counter terrorism what it is that we do to try and prevent these attacks happening. And really just where I could fit into that and where I could help if there was a way I could help. And so inevitably I think, you know, that that dichotomy between the two, that, that being torn between the two was really difficult for me in the first year or two after the attack. But I think I came to sort of, A conclusion around two years after the attack that couldn't pretend that this hadn't happened to me. And naturally for me to try and pretend that was the case would mean that each year you know, there is always going to be a negative reminder of what happened to me. And the, at the very least course, obviously you'll never forget what happened. But at the very least on the anniversary each year, that's one, one day a year for the rest of my life. And of course, as I say, I was 19 at the time, so I was very young. That's one day a year for the rest of your life is going to be, I thought wasted. I sort of negativity and reminders of what had happened to me. So I thought if there's any way I can try and get sort of some good or some positive to come out of that, then that would help me personally and obviously by proxy would help other people as well. And that's really the sort of mindset I took forward from that second year after the attack onwards because I wanted to make sure, and I think I probably got to that stage now actually, that I don't dread. The anniversary. I don't dread that day to approach him. You know, it doesn't get to January 1st and I think, right, we've got three months left, or we've got this amount of time left. Course that will always be on my mind, but it's not necessarily in a negative way anymore. It's become a sort of way for me to take stock each year and think this is what I've done this year. How can I do more next year? Or how can I help with this and that, et cetera. So it's definitely made a massive impact on both my outlook I think on life and also naturally my perspective on these issues because I had no knowledge whatsoever of this before the attack. And so it really did throw me in at the deep end and I was forced to learn everything from scratch. I think it's a testimony to the fact that of your character for sure I think anyone listening will be very glad that you are not dreading the anniversary every year, but it, you've pivoted this critical incident to turn it into something you know, as meaningful. And purposeful and productive as you can. It says an awful lot about you. I have to ask you cuz when you were talking about your fingers, oh, I've got a visual memory. I feel like I was seeing your fingers being contorted in different directions. How are your hands now? Are they all right? Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty gruesome injury. I'm not gonna lie. And it's not something you forget anytime soon I yeah, I mean I'm, I've been very lucky. I, it was made pretty clear to me during those eight days in hospital after the attack, but certainly, you know, in the five months I was on crutches afterwards that there were no guarantees on, on physical recovery. You know, my, my hand may not regain, that's what I was told, may not regain full function. Much in the same way that, you know, we would hope that I'd be able to make full sort of recovery to my sort of mobility with the interest I had to my legs, but again, that was solely dependent on physiotherapy and how sort of dedicated I was to it. And, you know, not to dwell on it too much, but the reality was after the attack that I didn't find that support was very adequate at all. for victims of terrorism, not just for myself, but for other victims. And actually when I tried going to the NHS for physiotherapy, once I was back in Lancaster I, I was told that the physiotherapy would essentially sort of be non-contact and would just be, you know, sort of consultations either over the phone or a five minute consultation in person. And I'd be given a, you know, a sheet, a printed air force sheet of exercises to do at home. And I knew that wasn't you know, you can imagine with the range of injuries I had, I was going home. It was like a pack of air for piece of paper. I knew that wasn't extensive enough for the entries I'd sustained. And eventually I decided to go for private physiotherapy, which sadly many victims do have to many victims of terrorism. Sustained that for use in my student loan that I had, of course for university cause I was a student at the time. And donations from friends and family as well. And that made a massive difference. And I can honestly say you know, I do have full function in my hands today and of my legs. I've ran marathons and all sorts after the attack, but I would not have been able to do that at all. And I simply relied on the support that was provided by the state. And I think that's quite damning. So did you find your phone, by the way? I did. Of course I did. Cause I rang, I rang the gas in parliament and I rang my mom as well. I dunno how you were able to ring with your hand. Alright, I'm right-handed. It's ok. I'm right-handed I was at Birmingham train station and I was on the phone to my friend. I remember who I was talking to. I remember what we were talking about and I, cuz I was wearing girly work shoes. I slipped and literally rolled down these two flights of stairs. I'm laughing cuz I got to the bottom and I still have my phone in my hands as bugger as, as I gonna bugger, is I gonna let that go? And that's when I, you know, you kind of made, look, I did get up. I, I put myself straight and I limped to the nearest seat. I was fine. If anything, my ego was very damaged because I was worried that I was going to have to get on the same train as everybody who'd seen me roll down the stairs. But I'll tell you, I bet that form was completely intact, wasn't it? This is the joke, isn't it? You drop'em on the floor and you smashing 2 million pieces, but you get hit by a car or something and you fall down a flat stairs and they're perfectly fine. I, I don't, I just don't know. But when you said your first instinct, no matter how injured you were, was to say, where's my phone? It's just phenomenal how Well, it's, because of course, that is the one thing I've been thinking about in the split second, earlier, before the card hit me. And it's a, it's, you gotta think, your brain is trying to process what's going on here, and it happens so fast that that is literally the, that's the same thing I was thinking two minutes ago is what am I typing in my phone? And within a sort of blink of an eye, you're now on the floor injured and you don't even realize, you don't have time to process the fact that you're injured. You're still thinking, where's my phone? And I was just typing something, you know? Yeah. It's such a bizarre situation. How has your mental health been since that incident? You know, have you suffered with any P T S D or anything like that? Sure. Yeah. Well, I, well, I, what I would say off the bat is actually, I think I got off pretty. And this is again, saying the word lucky, but lucky's perhaps not the right word to say for this one. But I obviously I've had, you know, my struggles with mental health and things and I think, to be honest with you, I'd be more worried about someone who, who went through something like this and pretended it hadn't affected them. I think I mentioned that before, but I was sore focused because of the range of physical injuries I sustained. I think naturally that dominated my, sort of my mind and it kept me on on mission, if you will, of those months following. So actually you know, I always think when it comes to mental health, a lot of the sort of times when mental health is exacerbated and is made worse is when you're sort of dwelling on things and, and naturally I just didn't have time to dwell on things. I was always in physiotherapy. I was always, quite frankly, in pain for so long after the attack in those six months afterwards as I was trying to sort of, you know, regain the ability to walk on things. That I just didn't have I didn't have time to, to sit around and to sort of, you know, mop and things as such. That said, obviously I was affected by the attack. I mean, one of the big things that I really suffered with for a long time afterwards was my sleep, because of course, what I've just said there about during the daytime keeping me focused, keeping me occupied is all far and well. But the second you go to sleep, you have no control over what you know, what your mind is thinking about. And I really struggled to, to both get to sleep, to stay asleep but also actually with the quality of my sleep. For, you know, a long time, probably those two years I was in physical therapy after the attack. And that was sort of not just a mental thing, but a physical thing as well. You know, you'd be in your sleep and you would I guess sort of replay the incident again in your head and, and perhaps you would try and run away or something, and then in real life your legs will kick out. And of course that'd be incredibly painful because, you know, my leg was fractured in two places. Yeah. So you'd sort of get these phantom pains as well. Were in your dreams and things you would remember or at least think that you could use your hand or use your leg and you try doing it. And that would cause physical pain as well as mental pain. So it was a really I guess a really sort of bizarre, like meta metaphysical you know, impact after the attack. But I would say that a lot of other people have struggled far worse than me with the mental health incidents of sort of the aftermath of the attack. And I think on the whole, I probably did get lucky with that side of things, but that's not to say that I was immune to it. And, and what sort of relationship have you had with other survivors of the incident? So we found, I mean, obviously in my group we've, you know, we've, we've remained in touch and everything and that we've always sort of tried to support each other in that sense. And So we were very lucky in the sense that we had, not that you would ever wished this on someone, but the fact that there were that small group at the very least of us on the bridge, but also the group in general. Cause of course, the other people who were on that trip were affected in their own way as well. Like the guys who were in the House Commons Cafe, which looks directly onto were PC Palmer was stabbed and killed, and then where the terrorists was shot. So obviously naturally they saw things that affected them. So as a wider group and also as a smaller group of others on the bridge, we always had each other, which I think was a relief because we found it very difficult to, to connect with the survivors of the Westminster attack. After the attack. We I think because of the nature of the fact that, you know, Westminster Bridge. It's not a community, it's, it's a tourist location. The victims were from around the world. It's not like say Manchester Arena, where everyone there was united by a common cause and that they all obviously were fans of, of Aaron a grande or at least music. And they came to that concert to see her. So they all had something in common. Yeah. We at Westminster had nothing in common. there was no sort of, because we had nothing in common, there was no way of contacting each other. The only people that had the sort of lists of people affected, and even then that was a bit patchwork, was of course the police. Yeah. Because they're only able to, to compile those lists when they arrive at the scene and start taking witness steps and things. And if you think about someone like my friend who you know, was hit by the, the, the bumper of the car was winded and as I mentioned, he went missing after the attack. He was long gone from the bridge before the police arrived and he was never included on the official you know, witness or injured lists. Because of course he, he'd fled the scene, understandably, given the nature of it. He fled the scene before the police arrived. So we never had that same sort of community and I think naturally because of that we never really had I guess it's the connectivity phrase. Yeah. Like a champion for us. If you look at Manchester. Yeah. They had the mayor, the mayor sort of built this identity around the attack with the bee and things, and they all knew where to go for support and he was very sort of inclusive of that. If you look at say, and that is a very important, you know, facet of response to an attack. If you look at, say, nine 11, for example, say what you want about the guy now, but people like Rudy Gianni after the attack and stuff was known as, you know, this, this mayor of a city that sort of roll from the ashes and people look to him for guidance and support. And we didn't necessarily have that in, in Westminster. And I think it was a really difficult few years after the attack because no one really took ownership of it. The council kind of said, well, I mean, the very fact of the matter first start is that it's no one council's jurisdiction because Westminster Bridge obviously sits down directly in the middle of Westminster Council and of Southern Council. So neither of those councils knew whose responsibility it was for a start. Parliament took responsibility for just PC Palmer and for that bit, which they treated as a separate attack on Parliament. But they didn't take responsibility for the, for the sort of, for the bridge and for the people affected there. The mayor of London kind of felt that, you know, on the sort of gla the, the regional authority, they kind of felt that really this is a national incident. It's terrorism, it's not an attack on London, so the home office should be taking responsibility and everyone really passed the book afterwards. So we never had one main sort of point of contact that and it was really only because of the fact that we naturally, as victims wanted to meet other people affected that that ended up happening. You know, we I had a few people who sort of maybe saw, saw something I did in the newspaper I can interview, and they reached out to me through the journalist. I saw another person give, a what to a journalist and I reached out to them and we ended up building our own connections, which again, as you can imagine, is really difficult because we've got people spread out across the world. And then we ended up campaigning for our own commemoration and Because of the fact that because no one had taken responsibility or ownership, we never even got any commemorations on the anniversaries. There was no sort of events to market or anything. So naturally we didn't even have physical way of being together and meeting each other. So it was a good four or five years after the attack that we finally got the chance to meet each other. And it's only now really six years on that. We're starting to build that community and build friendships with each other. So it's tough cuz it feels like we're quite a few years behind. The other attacks that happened in 2017, you look at London Bridge, you know, they had the community because naturally everyone there was on a night out there was a nightlife again, shared passion, shared interest. The, the Bur Markets community, the pubs and things took ownership of that. You look at Manchester, as I say, Andy Burnham, the concert, Aaron Grande, they all took ownership of that as a sort of figurehead. And we never had that with Westminster. So we've had to make it ourselves. But what I would say is that in the years before we met each other, People from other attacks were very welcoming and recognizing and seeing what had happened to us. You know, they took us under their wing. I mean, Manchester for example, is the easy one for me cuz I'm based up in Lancaster, so it's much closer to home. And I met a lot more of the Manchester victims before I ever met a lot of the victims of my own attack. But for people in London, you know, the London Bridge guys often took in a lot of the victims of the Westminster Tech. Invited them along to events that they were doing, kept them in the loop, you know, made friends with them and things. So the survivor community were very welcoming and very open, and even people farther afield. I was contacted by say, nine 11 victims victims of the Oklahoma City bombing back in 1995, I think it is. All these victims came together from across the world and saw what was happening and, and, you know, offered their support to us. And I, in many ways met, you know, so many more of them before I ever met people affected by my own attack. So it was a really bizarre situation. And I'm hearing that it's a common theme certainly in relation to significant incidents where the attacker or the murderer or the serial killer is the one that's notoriously known, but his survivors are less known. And it does seem a bit disproportionate. I saw something recently where the survivors were saying, you know, not one person can name a survivor, but we can all name the killer. And there's this theme of survivors just feeling invisible. This is a very significant learning. Do you know if the, the police and the authorities have taken that on board, and is that part of other learnings from the Westminster Bridge attacks? Yes. I mean, I'm, I'm very I mean, I must be honest with you again, I try not to be, Like pessimistic necessarily. But I, I'm always very cautious when we hear this phrase about lessons learned because we hear it after every attack. And, and yet when you look at, you know, again, keeping to the topic, we're on support for victims. I can talk to victims of attacks, you know, IRA attacks in the seventies and eighties and they received pretty much the same support or lack thereof that I have received in 2017. And of course, after every single one of those attacks, I'm pretty sure I'll go out on a whim here and say that I'm pretty sure after each one of those attacks, there was probably some sort of government minister Alterian, who said the lessons will be learned. And I mean, sometimes those lessons are learned. I would hope that, say for example, With a high profile incident like the Manchester Arena inquiry. Hopefully in the security space and in the countering terrorism space, those lessons will be learned. But I'm not sure that in the support for victims and in what comes after an attacks happened, that those lessons really are learned. Because I think there's a difference here in terms of political will and political buy-in. And I think that, as you mentioned, when we talk about victims being voiceless, there's also this feeling that I think almost like a feeling of pessimism amongst policymakers sometimes that, well, terrorism's not going to go away, so what can we really do about it? And, and that's, I know, I know. And I see you rolling your ass for the viewers who'll be listening to this, but it's true. It sometimes happens. And I remember again, not to into too much detail, but I remember when we were campaigning for a pla to place on Westminster Bridge to mark the victims of the attack that happened there. We spoke to many officials who, in no certain terms said that they didn't wanna plaque there because if we put a plaque up for every attack that happened, then well, London will just be covered in plaques forever. Oh, a goodness mistake. And this is the sort of, sometimes there's this real lack of creativity I think, and of actual passion when it comes to trying to deal with these issues at the highest levels. And I, I really worry that, you know, yes, with the cap terrorism stuff, there are mechanisms whether or not, and I'm sure your listeners will know more about this than me, whether or not they're actually paid attention to, but there are mechanisms for holding government and say security services and the police to account less so with the victims, because naturally we have sympathy for them in the immediate, you know, week or two after an attack has happened. But when the media moves on, when another attack happens, whether or not we mean to, we do forget. And that's the reality of the situation. And it's a tough pill to swallow for the victims themselves. You very astutely mentioned that I roll my eyes. That's why I don't play poker, Travis, because I literally wear what I'm thinking or my face. So you joined the police as a police advisor, and how were you able to contribute, because I love the fact you were a big contributor. There's a real sense of purpose here. what did they want from you and what could you offer them? Yeah, so I was, I was invited in November of 2018, the, the police council and police in, down, down in London cut out a call for sort of applicants. They said that they were, they'd had this advisory network of sort of people that were you know, engaged in sort of like community outreach work and, and wanted to quote, unquote act as a critical friend for the police. They had this network. It was quite small, it just started up. But the one thing they didn't have in the network was victims of terrorism. So they put out this sort of And I'll call saying that if any victims terrorism want to get involved and want to help us, please get in touch. And so I got in touch that way and I joined them as a, as an advisor. I joined that network and I've been with them now for close to I think it'll be close to five years, if not close to six years actually. in March of last year I was elected as a national chair of the youth sort of subgroup of that as well, counterterrorism Youth Advisory Group. Now the goal of that group really is to provide the police with, you know, sort of strategic guidance and advice on either the community engagement that they do, but also the implementation of counter terrorism policy and how that reaches, you know, the sort of grassroots level. as a survivor, it's all the more obvious I think and clear to us, but they can sometimes, not just in the police, but in all sectors in general, they can sometimes be a disconnect between. A policy and theory and practice. And at the end of the day, as a survivor, we've got no reason to sugarcoat it. So if something's not going right, we can tell them. But at the moment I lead this group of around a hundred young people up and down the United Kingdom. And these are people who advise the police and provide guidance on sort of, campaigns that they're doing and other sort of forms of primarily, I'll be honest with you, primarily prevent, it's meant to be all four ps of the contest strategy. But as you might imagine prevents gets most of the attention and that's what most our workers but I do a lot of work with the police cuz I think there is a real benefit here because naturally, and I, I, I say this again as someone who. Before the attack had no knowledge of terrorism or anything. I do feel that when it comes to these issues, first people that people will look towards for guidance and for help is the police. And probably false, second being the government, but most certainly the police. And so I think that sometimes we get perhaps lost in the operational and the strategic and tactical side of things. And I think we, we forget that as a physical, you know, public body, they are the people that we all look to for help in this area. And actually that's where most people will go to for support. Whether or not that's right and whether or not they're gonna get that support is another thing. But if we can offer them you know, a sort of route to getting that support from the correct location rather than simply fubbing them off and saying, sorry, that's not what we do. Then that's gonna be worthwhile. But I also think there's a massive, massive role to be played. That currently isn't being played by survivors in Encount terrorism. And I think that voice of people who've been affected by terrorism and other acts of sort of violence extremism can be massively powerful and really impactful. And trying to educate, you know, young people, vulnerable people in different communities about the risks of radicalization. Cuz the reality is that's the only true outcome to radicalization. And think sharing that personal voice can be really, really powerful in trying to sort of redirect people away from extremism. In the hospital you met the then Prince Charles, now soon to be King Prince Charles. What's he like? Travis? I did. Yeah. So I was very impressed actually. I mean, I To be honest with you, this was about it was about two or three days after the attack. I guess two, actually now I think about it. And I woke up that morning in hospital and, and someone came to see me and they said that I can't remember what it was at the time, but it was the name of, you know, like Buckingham Palace. It was the name of war like Ingham or something like that, or whatever. His, his like house was his residence. Sandham house. That's sit that, what was that? Yeah, his residence. Exactly. We'll say it's Booking Palace. Of course it wasn't a time, but just for the purpose of this, they, they sort of said, well, they want to come and see you. And I said, well, what do you, what'd you mean? And they said, oh it's, it's Prince Charles. He's coming around to visit the hospital. Would you be okay with him coming to see you? And obviously I, you know, of course said yes and, and, you know, was really taken aback and Interestingly, at the time though, the people who were coming to tell, coming to tell me this then said, oh, but you'll have to write, you'll have to sign this waiver to so that the BBC can record you and broadcast it live when he is coming to see you. So I felt a bit iffy about it, but obviously for the sake of meeting, you know, prince Charles wasn't gonna say no to it. So I signed this waiver and probably being taken taken for granted, but put them in the backseat for now. And obviously I started, you know, panicking, trying to get ready and earth, and, and it sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but I'm there thinking like, I've gotta gotta clean myself up here. I've not even like scrubbed the, scrubbed the blood off me properly yet or anything. And I'm, I'm gonna be here seeing Prince Charles. And anyway, he comes in and and I was in a shared ward, you see, not just with other people from the attack, but with just other people with, you know, general sort of major injuries and things. And as soon as he got to the doorway to this ward that was shared with four, the, oh, three other people, sorry, four of us in the ward Turned around and he closed the doors behind him. So the journalists didn't even come in anyway. They were stuck outside. So cool. And he basically just said, no, no, no, you can stay there. And he closed the doors. And so it was just me, him, and obviously the sort of staff and stuff and doctors you know, and he stayed for, I think it was close to 10, 15 minutes. He sat next to him. We had a really good conversation, Nathan. You know, he was, I don't wanna say down to worth, cuz he is a prince at the end of the day, but he was about as down to worth as a prince could be. He was very you know, I was very impressed by him, let's put it that way. And I, I couldn't really fault the journey. I mean, I, I remember towards the end of it, I asked him could I get a photograph? And and we were taking this photo. I remember he was fiddling with the light behind me cuz there there was this little imagine a. Crappy little hospital light that was, that was pointing at it and it was ruining the quality of the four 20. It was like, let me switch this, you know, bloody thing off. And and we were having a good laugh on earth in which, given the circumstances is what I needed. Yeah, but also given the circumstances was it was what I needed in the sense that, and this is gonna sound really bizarre, so hear me out, but he is a familiar face, you know, of him. And you gotta think, this is probably the only, the second time in my life that I'd ever been to London. It's very literally looks and feels like a different country entirely to where I'm from, up in Lancaster. My mom had just arrived that morning, so you can imagine I'll taken aback. She was to, to finally, she's just arriving. Prince Charles gonna arrive an hour later. And apart from, you know, my mom and Prince Charles, these were all. People I'd never seen before, never met before. Naturally you felt very insecure. You know, you felt very unsafe because of what had happened to you. And so to see someone who, you know, you recognize from Italian things actually kind of put me at ease a little bit. And what I will say, and, you know, I always share the story cause I think it's really worthwhile and it should have. It's a testament to his character as well as he was getting up to leave he walked past one of the other beds for one of the other folks that was in my ward with me. And it was a, it was a young lad that I think he was a couple of years younger within me, but he'd been in a car accident. And he was I believe he was in a coma, but I, I might begin that wrong. He was either in a coma or he, he had a quite a bad brain injury and his mom was next to his bed and she was lovely as mom. She used to, you know, Bring me meals in from outside. She'd bring McDonald's in one day or something, you know what I mean? Just to save me from the hospital food. And and of course till my mom got down to hospital, she was basically the person I was nattering with every day. And he spoke, were on the way out. And, you know, he was asking her about her son and what had happened. And he was, you know, he was really taken aback by it. Anyway, you know, he leaves the next day, I think it was, or even the day, two days afterwards, she came up to me and she said she said, one of the nurses has just asked for my address because the palace wants to write to me, do you know what it's about? And I said, no. I said, I have no, anyway. And I kept in touch with her and a long story short, he for some time afterwards, I dunno if he still does it now, but for some time, for many months afterwards, he was writing her letters, asking for updates on her son to see how he's doing and things and how he's improving, if there's anything he could help with, things like that. Now that to me It almost sounds like a made up story because I just, you know, he didn't come to see him. He came to see people affected by this terror attack. But the simple fact that he went out of his way to just speak to someone who, who was literally just in the ward on the way out and then went out of his way to keep in touch them afterwards. And that's something that's never gonna make a front page of a newspaper. That's never gonna be, you know, plaster of the news. It's not a, it's not a media charade that's just doing something because he obviously was taken aback by, it was impacted by a story and felt it was worthwhile. Yeah. That to me, you know, is, is a testament to his character. So I was very very pleased to, to have him visit me and yeah, it was massive privilege and compassion, I think, you know? Absolutely. That's what, 100%. And it's a jolly good job. You weren't too high from all of the pain meds you were on. Probably was, I probably spoke a lot of rubbish to him. I mean, thank God it wasn't broadcast live. Let's that one actually. I'm, I'm hoping that you did make sense of it anyway, but we, we all hear stories, don't we, about how under anesthetic, you know, and painkillers, you know, in hospital, like people propose to nursing staff and don't remember any of it, declare love and all that sort of thing. Before we sort of finish up really Sure. I just want to go through your position as chair of the National Counter-Terrorism Youth Advisory Group. I mean, look, that's a heck of a mouthful, but it's phenomenal. What does that involve? Sure the, the key forks behind that is to provide advice to to both the government, police and security services on any strand of counterterrorism policy on its implementation. How it's received by communities and, and how it might be improved, quite frankly. Now that's a very easy. You know, tick box, sort of answer in practice. We're really keen that it's not just an advisory group. We do a lot of work in universities. We travel around the country. We organize panel discussions with young survivors and young former extremists alongside each other to try and sort of get a dialogue going. And of course, having two young people with very drastically different experiences on a panel in front of young university students really gets the nogging going and it actually gets people to sit up and pay attention. So that's one of the projects we do. We also do a project called Resilience and Unity which is something that I spearheaded during the pandemic. The goal beyond that, of course, was because Pre pandemic myself and many other victims would be. And had been going around to schools, to universities, to colleges, sharing our story, talking about you know, the warning signs of radicalization and how we prevent that and what to do if you spot those signs. And of course, with the onset of the pandemic, schools were closed. We naturally I think terrorism just wasn't on topic. Full stop. People were obviously, understandably of course, but they were talking about pandemic 24 7 and terrorism was sort of, it took a backseat. Mm. So the results in Nuity project was a way for, for us as victims to recenter I think our voices at the heart of counterterrorism efforts. And the goal really was to record the testimonies of people affected by terrorism from around the world. And then plot these onto sort of Google Maps style mapping tool. Which can then be used for essentially lesson plans free lesson plans or resources that schools and other sort of you know, that police and prevent practitioners and anyone really can use to try and raise awareness of terrorism. Because the one thing I think I mentioned previously before, but the one thing I'm really passionate about is that we hear from in this space, you know, as counterterrorism officials, if you will, we hear from voices that we haven't heard from yet because now obviously that's quite easy, you know, to say in terms of an e d I perspective. But actually for me, I come at this from two different perspectives. One is the young people side of things, and of course I think naturally cancer terrorism is often sphere, which is dominated by people that perhaps look one way, that people who have one background. You know what I'm trying to say, et cetera, et cetera. And it's often naturally just something that after 20, 30 years of say, working the police or another area you specialize in, it's not something that you get into as a starter career. Yeah. And I'm conscious that, you know, I always get people say, oh, well, you know, it's amazing that you do this work having experienced what you have. But for me, actually, I put that on the other foot and I say, well, when there are people out there, young people who are passionate about these issues and want to work in counterterrorism and haven't had that same personal experience that I have, I think that's really impressive. And I think anything we can do to give them the opportunities to get involved to, to build skills and things and to connect them with the right folks early on in the career has got to amplify the impact they can have. You know, and I, I worry that if we Naturally, because this isn't an area that's, that's easy to get into as a career. If, if we lose those people and we lose their passion because they go and get a different career, maybe they work in a corporate sector or something like that then we're missing out on a lot of expertise here. And the other area, of course, naturally given my background is survivors. I think there's a real benefit to hearing from survivors and having them involved in counterterrorism efforts. You know, you wanna talk about lessons learned. Well, there's no one who you are ever gonna hear, you know, more intimately affected by terrorism, who can speak to the reality of what happens on the ground. Not just the policy, not just what the training says, but what is actually happening in the heat of the moment. And I think if we can hear from more people who have been affected by terrorism and who are willing to share their voice and talk about what happened, what went right, what didn't go right Then we've got to, you know, find a way to improve things. So that for me is why I'm really passionate about and where I'm trying to steer the group at the moment. While I'm sure, and on your bio as well for the podcast, we'll make sure, Travis, that your LinkedIn profile, all of the groups and associations that you are part of so people can, click on the links and find out more. Okay. Yeah, please do. And I always say that if anyone, you know, if anyone thinks I can help, then please do get in touch and I'm more than welcome to try and collaborate wherever possible. Smashing. Well listen, I have one last question. What makes you happy now? Gosh. I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a really, do you want a practical answer or a, or a, a philosophical answer? throw it my way. I would say knowing that I have a sort of mission statement. You know, in life, I think we, a lot of us, we grow up and we don't know what we wanna do., and I think we spend a lot of our, sort of like our teens in our twenties perhaps, and help probably even further into life wondering, why am I here? What am I doing? You know, and I think I've probably had a bit of a cheat code there. I've, I've jumped the gun. I've had an experience that, as horrific as it is, it's made clear to me. As far as I'm concerned, why I'm here and the impact I can have on the world. And I think that makes me pretty happy, you know, is, is actually knowing that what I do when I get up in the morning is gonna have an impact. Whether that's in, in hopefully supporting other people who've been affected by terrorism or hopefully got helpers in preventing other attacks. And, and to actually, you know, feel quite grateful actually for the opportunities I've been given all the past few years to recognize and to action that that goal. But frankly, well, I think also the fact, you know, going back to the very beginning that you were selflessly trying to warn people, you know, without a thought, feel personal safety or, you know, considering your injuries that you had at the time, I think is admirable. And I have to say that I'm very proud of what you've achieved and how you've managed, living through and beyond a life-changing event. So thank you for sharing your inspiring story. Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.