Sanford teacher recounts scene after bus blast

BIDDEFORD – A Sanford High School teacher who saw the London double-decker bus just after it was bombed said the scene was strewn with carnage and looked like a war zone.

Sanford English department head Steven Schulz said noise like fireworks came first. Schoolchildren from another part of Britain visiting a museum, also at the scene of last week’s terrorist bombing, had anguished looks on their faces as they saw the remains of the exploded bus and its riders, he said.

“The street was strewn with amputated limbs. Because the bus stairs to the second tier had been damaged in the blast, people were scrambling to get off the top section. Pedestrians were approaching the bus, offering their shoulders as a step to disembark,” Schulz said. “This is what the children were viewing.”

With a crowd forming around the scene, some of the children were pushed away from the rest of their group. Schulz said he and another man helped to herd the shocked and frenzied children to safety by gathering them together against a wall.

“We waited there together until we knew that we could move as a group to get out of the square and closer to the museum,” said Schulz, who was visiting England to attend a Shakespeare festival. Once everyone was safe, he and the other man, a Muslim from Dubai, began talking.

“We discussed the irony of our being together, a Christian and a Muslim, working together to protect these innocents,” he said.

With help from a British Museum worker, Schulz was able to send an e-mail home to let his family know he was safe.

“I spent the evening wandering the city. Few were out in the streets. Police seemed to be stationed on every corner. I figured London was the safest place in the world that evening,” said Schulz, adding that “the eeriness of the evening was ghostlike.”