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Tearful survivor tells of attack 'pandemonium'

Nicola Tyrrell,Steve Boggan
Monday 12 February 1996 00:02 GMT
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NICOLA TYRRELL and STEVE BOGGAN

One of the four victims of last Friday's bombing still receiving hospital treatment broke down in tears last night and declared: "I feel I am one of the lucky ones."

Despite suffering serious facial cuts, a nose broken in three places and scarring down the left side of his body, Tony Sharp, 34, believed he could easily have been killed by the IRA's half-ton bomb.

Mr Sharp, a telesales worker from Blackheath, south London, was on the fourth floor of the Franklin Mint building when the device exploded. He and his colleagues had been evacuated from the now devastated building but were allowed back to work half an hour before the bomb tore through the Isle of Dogs, killing two and injuring more than 100.

Covered in bandages and clearly shocked by his ordeal, Mr Sharp recalled standing next to a colleague, Neville Walker, 31 - who was discharged from hospital yesterday - when a computer screen exploded in his face.

"We fell straight down, then got straight up and rushed out of the fire exit," he said. "I could feel my face covered in blood and didn't know what state I was in. I didn't know what was going on. It was pandemonium.

"I don't know what effect this will have on my life," he said at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. "I don't want to know who did this, I just want to carry on as if it never happened. I want to say to the families of people lost I hope everything will turn out OK."

Mr Sharp and three of the other victims are expected to be discharged from hospital within the week. One man, 55-year- old Zaoui Berrezag, remains critical.

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