Firefighters' strike

South London Press

Crew battles in vain to save Tube victim

Nov 19 2002

By Vicky Wilks And Chris Pragnell

THE body of a 66-year-old woman is carried away from Stockwell Tube Station on Friday after she was killed under a train.

The woman - from West Dulwich - was found on the northbound track of the Victoria Line.

Brixton firefighters - on strike at the time - left their picket line in a bid to rescue her at around 1pm.

But she was pronounced dead at the scene 20 minutes later.

A British Transport Police spokesman told the South London Press there were "no suspicious circumstances".

He added the Tube train had to be moved for the woman to be taken from the track.

A Green Goddess manned by the army and emergency services helicopter also attended.

It proved to be a busy 48 hours for the south London Green Goddess crew for last week's 48-hour walk-out by firefighters.

Although the time passed without major disaster, four depots - based at Camberwell, Catford, Grove Park and Tulse Hill - fielded a total of 96 calls between them during the strike.

The majority were car fires, although Army crews did tackle a blaze at a pub in Kennington.

Captain Alex McKay said: "We had a hell of a lot of small fires - cars set alight, mattresses, that sort of thing.

"Though these are not necessarily hoax calls as such - because there is a fire - there may have been an element of children starting the fires deliberately to see the Green Goddesses come out.

"But the fire brigade get similar problems."

Firefighters and their employers were set for yet further discussions yesterday - this time with an eight-day walkout looming.

If an agreement is not reached by the end of the week, firefighters will head home on Friday and not return until the end of the month.

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