Nice attack: Waitress 'used London terror experience' to clear hotel terrace

Bouquets of flowers near the scene in Nice where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed
Pascal Rossignol/Reuters
Hatty Collier17 July 2016
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

A waitress used her experience of terror in London to quickly evacuate a hotel terrace as a truck began ploughing through crowds during the Nice attack.

The woman ordered people to leave the outside dining area of the Westminster hotel along the Promenade des Anglais when they saw a lorry mowing down people in its path during Bastille Day celebrations.

Tita Siren, 56, had been enjoying a drink with a friend when the 20 tonne vehicle appeared and began striking victims at high speed.

Ms Siren, from Finland, said she ran and heard a waitress shouting at people to leave the area immediately, in case the lorry exploded.

She said: "The waitress from the terrace, she told us later that she had seen these kind of happenings in London so she reacted immediately and she actually emptied the whole terrace after we already had run.

"But I heard her high voice ordering people, so she was excellent in saving people from the terrace actually."

Ms Siren also described desperate attempts of people to stop the lorry before police shot dead driver 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.

She said: "I recognised that one or two men were trying to open the door of the driver. They were hanging on the door so trying to save other people's lives."

"The whole width of the truck was full of people in front of it and it just drove over the people and they fell, like the driver was bowling."

Nice Terror Attack Tributes Around The World - In Pictures

1/15

Ms Siren said it took as long as 45 minutes for some people to get help in the wake of the attack, describing injured people covered in blood and later bodies lying in the street.

Asked how she felt about people returning to the promenade on Saturday, the mother of three, who has visited Nice frequently for more than two decades, said: "It's a good thing, we should not give any space to the fear.

"Life anyway goes on. I was 20 metres from that truck, happily sitting. But I thought, 'It's going to explode'. So I'm very happy that I'm alive. So many are not."

Additional reporting by Press Association.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT