The taxi driver who survived the Liverpool suicide bomber said “someone has blown me up” in his first words after the attack. 

David Perry, 45, cheated death after Emad Al Swealmeen set off a bomb in his taxi outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday.

His immediate reaction to the blast was revealed by Darren Knowles, the security guard who rushed to the driver’s aid after he fled the vehicle.

Mr Knowles recounted how the driver stumbled from his taxi, with blood pouring from his ear and neck, screaming, “I want my wife”.

The 50-year-old described hearing a “loud bang” at the time of the terrorist explosion, and said he believed it was a mechanical failure before seeing Mr Perry rush from the taxi.

Mr Knowles told the Daily Mirror: “He was panicking and screaming, ‘Someone has blown me up. I want my wife’.

“He was trying to tell us, ‘There is a passenger, there is a passenger’. I was trying to say to him, ‘Is he still in there’, and he was saying, ‘He has tried to blow me up’.”

Mr Knowles added: “Everyone is calling me a hero but I was just doing my job.

“My hands were shaking when I realised how close I was to being blown up. But you don’t think, you just do.”