Tiptree student nurse Jason Hampson escaped the Soho pub bombing when he left the Admiral Duncan to buy theatre tickets minutes before the blast.

Jason, 29, works close to the St Andrew's plastic surgery unit in Chelms-ford where two men caught in the nail explosion are being treated.

He said: "It is a miracle I am not dead or in the burns ward with them. I am a nurse and I should have been helping people, but I just did not know what to do.

"I was out with friends drinking in the pub where it happened when we decided to buy some theatre tickets and then we went to Compton's, a pub opposite the Admiral Duncan.

"We had been in there no more than five minutes when we heard a bang and a cloud of smoke and rubble came past the window.

"It was carnage. I had seen this sort of thing on television, but it doesn't really touch you. To be there was awful, it was like a war zone."

Jason says he did not think he could help police identify those who planted the bomb as he did not see anyone acting suspiciously.

He commented: "I just could not believe what was going on around me after the bomb went off. People were convulsing and shaking. I wandered around sitting with people and comforting, but I was in a daze myself.

"One man was roaming around looking for his friend. He collapsed when he discovered that his friend had died.

"I paused by a pillar box and looked down and realised I was standing next to a body wrapped in a plastic bag.

"It's quite frightening to think that I had been in there just a little while before. I could have been one of those lying in the street with my legs blown off."

A 22-year-old Hampshire man facing charges in connection with the three London nail bomb explosions was remanded in custody at West London magistrates court earlier this week.

Student nurse Jason Hampson.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.