IRA Brighton Bomb: Doctor who treated victims recalls blast

Carlos Perez-Avila was one of the first to treat the victims of the bomb attack at Brighton's Grand Hotel

A doctor who treated victims after the 1984 bombing at Brighton's Grand Hotel recalled the experience at a conference at the same venue on Monday.

Carlos Perez-Avila, originally from El Salvador, was one of the first doctors called in when an IRA bomb was set off.

Five people were killed in the October blast at the hotel, where Margaret Thatcher's ruling Conservative Party had been holding its annual conference.

Mr Perez-Avila said his experience with earthquakes had helped his response.

He described Mrs Thatcher's reaction to the bombing as "unflappable" and said the fact the target of the bombing had been the government did not add to the pressure.

"You just go into overdrive" he said. "You just do your job. The individuals are just another patient."

Margaret Thatcher's bathroom in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, following the explosion

He said the situation was only brought home to him when chief whip John Wakeham was brought in, having been trapped for seven hours.

"He said, 'I'll give you this telephone number, it's the switchboard at 10 Downing Street, tell them that I'm OK'.

"Then it clicked, these people are very important."

When the prime minister visited A&E staff the following afternoon, Mr Perez-Avila recalled how she remarked to him that she had once met El Salvador's president.

"I was speechless, you've just been bombed and you remember three years ago Napoleon Duarte had been in a state visit. It's surreal."

The consultant was speaking at a conference aimed at improving hospitals' reactions to mass-casualty incidents.

He said the bombing "was like an earthquake, and I'm familiar with earthquakes because El Salvador is a country with earthquakes".

"So I knew there was not going to be mass casualties coming in, they were going to trickle because they were trapped.

"That gave us time to prepare and get the control room established, get the surgery in place and just gradually build up."

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