The fourth victim of the Westminster attack was on holiday and taking a photograph moments before she was struck by a car and thrown over the bridge into the Thames, an inquest has heard.
Andreea Cristea, 31, was walking across the bridge with her boyfriend, Andrei Burnaz, when Khalid Masood hit them with his car on 22 March last year. The impact threw Cristea over the parapet of the bridge into the Thames.
“It was very quick,” Burnaz told the inquest, adding that he first “felt a burning sensation” on his left foot. “After the vehicle passed I looked on the left side of me to search for Andreea, but I couldn’t see her,” he said.
Cristea was one of five people killed by Masood, who carried out a car and knife attack on Westminster Bridge and the Palace of Westminster. The attack lasted 82 seconds and injured dozens of others.
Burnaz told the inquest of his frantic efforts to find Cristea. When he couldn’t see her, he said, “I started running towards the car to see what happened”, believing Cristea to be stuck underneath the vehicle.
She wasn’t there and he returned to the site where they had been hit. “I tried to call her. Her phone start ringing and I thought this was a positive thing,” Burnaz said, but he added: “I found her phone and her glasses in a pool of blood.” He told the officers who quickly reached the scene: “I think my girlfriend is in the water.”
CCTV footage showed Cristea being thrown into the Thames at 2.40pm, moments after being struck by the car. Within two minutes she had been secured by a boat hook, the inquest was told.
Michael Brown, who was driving home at the time of the attack, told the inquest he saw Cristea thrown at least 10ft into the air and fall into the water. Brown left his car and looked over the bridge to find Cristea. He called 999 and told emergency personnel: “There’s a woman in the water drowning”. He described the scene on the bridge as “carnage”, with a lot of people screaming.
He told the inquest he saw Cristea face down in the Thames. He tried to get the attention of a boat crew, “shouting and screaming”, and a man on the boat acknowledged him. Brown said he considered jumping into the water himself but he couldn’t swim. He broke down in tears while giving evidence.
Danny Cooper, a City Cruises boat captain, told the inquest he initially thought there was “garbage” in the water. He said he saw and heard Brown, who was shouting that there was someone in the water. “As we got closer it was quite clear it was a body,” he said. “You could see clothing and a backpack.”
His colleague went to get a boat hook and positioned himself on the side of the boat. Cristea was secured on the hook but remained in the water. He told the inquest he initially assumed the body had been in the water for a while. He recalled seeing “a lot of blood in the water around her”.
When asked why his colleague did not immediately remove Cristea from the water, Cooper said it would have been “physically impossible”.
Cristea was recovered from the water by the crew of a fire service boat. Thomas Wolfe, a London Fire Brigade watch manager who was onboard the boats, told the inquest that once Cristea was brought on board he immediately saw signs of life.
“There was a short cough and a spurt of water came out of her mouth,” he said. The team administered first aid and saw positive signs; Cristea’s pulse was gradually getting stronger and so was her breathing.
But Cristea’s health began to deteriorate once she was in the ambulance heading to Royal London hospital. Joanne Fant, an ambulance technician providing Cristea with care, said she was vomiting and “continuously choking” throughout the journey. Emergency personnel struggled to keep her airways open.
Dr Samy Sadek, trauma team leader at the Royal London hospital, said Cristea was an “extremely complex patient” who had a severe head injury, was hypothermic, struggling to breath and had lost a lot of blood.
He was asked if Cristea’s chances of survival would have been higher if she had been pulled out of the water sooner. “I really don’t think I can say if I’m honest,” Sadek replied.
Cristea was transferred to St Bartholomew’s hospital, where she received specialist care. She never regained consciousness and died on 6 April.
A video link was arranged so Cristea’s family could watch the proceedings from Bucharest. The inquest, which opened Monday, is expected to last until 17 October.
