Taxi driver caught up in Liverpool Women's Hospital terror attack opens up one year on

David Perry on GMB
Taxi driver David Perry came on ITV's Good Morning Britain to reflect on his experience of the Liverpool terror attack one year later. Credit: Good Morning Britain

The taxi driver caught up in the Liverpool Women's Hospital terror attack said "the slightest smell of plastic" takes him back to the incident.

David Perry dropped Emad Al-Swealmeen at the hospital on Remembrance Sunday in 2021, where the terrorist triggered an explosive.

Emergency services were called to the hospital on Crown Street at 10:59am to reports of a car engulfed in flames.

  • This video shows the moment David Perry car engulfs into flames at Liverpool Women's Hospital

Speaking in an interview on ITV's Good Morning Britain Mr Perry Said: "I remember the blast, I remember getting blown up.

"I remember thinking 'why has a wagon drove into the back of me', and then I was out, but the actual driving into the hospital, I've got no recollection, no memory of driving into the hospital at all."

He continued: "Obviously your brain works in strange ways."

David was pulled out of the car with serious injuries, including a back fracture, burns, shrapnel wounds and burst ear drums.

Although the taxi drivers scars have healed he continued to say that even though the world moves on, he will forever be "stuck in that situation".

"It's the smells. It's looking in the mirror and seeing the scar on you.

"The slightest bit of smell of plastic, it just reminds me of the actual car burning and being all over me. I was burning, it's a strange thing."

"You know something is wrong because I was blocked off."

"When he got in, everything was wrong about it. He'd sunk behind the seat, I couldn't see him, all he said was 'women's hospital' and then when I tried to make conversation halfway through, no response."

David asked Al-Swealmeen if he had a baby and received no response.

"Usually when a customer doesn't talk back, or doesn't respond to you something is wrong."

The bomb went off in David's taxi.

"The injuries to me are nothing. To live with yourself if a baby dies, I don't think anybody could live with that, especially if it was a load of babies and mothers."

David has not worked since the attack.

"I want to get back in the taxi. A lot of people say 'oh no you aren't going to go back to that' and it sort of makes you more determined to go back to it, it's a strange thing."

Ben Shephard asked David how he felt about the bomber. He said: "I don't feel anything about him. He was just another person.

"Unfortunately he was sick himself, had a few problems. He's not in my memory, there's not thought of him. I can't remember his face."