Two women who ran to help people injured in the London terror attack were only saved from being victims themselves by a chance text message.
Emma Kelsall and her partner Lisa Callaghan were enjoying a day sightseeing in the capital when jihadist Khalid Masood launched his bloodthirsty rampage.
As the pair walked on Westminster Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, Lisa received a text from her mum which said: “Hope you get something nice.”
It prompted them to walk over to a stall selling souvenir fridge magnets.
Seconds later 52-year-old Masood drove on to the bridge and began mowing down innocent pedestrians exactly where they had been standing.
Emma, 34, and Lisa, 35, both from Failsworth, Lancs, then bravely spent more than two hours on the bridge, helping to tend to victims horrifically injured by the careering 4x4 vehicle.
Children’s home worker Emma told the Sunday People: “You have to do something for people in that situation. They desperately needed our help.
“I didn’t think about the danger, instinct just took over.
“There wasn’t much we could do apart from stay with them and do our best to reassure them and keep them calm – but there was no way we could have left them.”
The women were in London to celebrate Lisa’s birthday when the horror unfolded before their eyes.
They had already visited a string of famous tourist spots and were smiling happily as they posed for a selfie with their pints in a London pub.
Minutes later Muslim convert Masood killed four people and injured around 50 more before police shot him dead.
Posting their snap on the internet at 2.24pm, Emma wrote: “Stopped for a quick one during sight-seeing.Off to Downing Street to sort the world.”
She told us: “We had just taken pictures of Big Ben and were about to cross at a pedestrian crossing to take some more photos when Lisa got a text from her mum, telling her to buy something nice.
“Lisa said, ‘Let’s go and have a look at these magnets’. At that moment I started to hear shouting.
“At first I thought it was just kids. But then I looked across the bridge and saw this car bounce up on to the cycle lane and then on to the pavement.
"People started running to get out of the way but he began driving into them.
“I saw him hit a woman. She went flying up into the air. At first I thought it was a traffic accident and he had swerved to avoid something. But then everyone started running.
“We saw three people seriously injured lying near us. You could clearly see three bodies strewn on the pavement.
“We knew we needed to stay and help them.
“There was a woman, a man and then another woman. There was blood all over the pavement.
“Lisa went to the first woman who was bleeding profusely from the head and was unconscious initially.
"She wouldn’t let go of her hand. I went to the woman who was furthest away. You could see her foot was broken because it was facing the wrong way.
“She said she was from London. I told her not to move.
“As I stood up, an armed police officer jumped out of a silver Range Rover. He was screaming, ‘Shots fired, shots fired! Where is he?’
“I froze – it was all sirens. We pointed to where we thought he had gone.
“I went over to the man lying injured. He had blood pumping out of his shin and kept saying, ‘Where is my girlfriend?’ He was saying she had gone over the wall into the river.”
This man was Romanian engineer Andrei Burnaz. He and Andreea Cristea, a 29-year-old architect, were on holiday in London and he had planned to propose to her that day.
She fell from the bridge into the River Thames but was pulled out and is critically ill in hospital.
Emma recalled: “I told him that someone would find his girlfriend but that he needed to stay where he was because his leg was pretty bad.
“He was aged about 40 and spoke good English. He was in a real state and was panicking. He ended up on oxygen.
“By this time police were running around and we were getting bits of information, like, ‘One dead, 13 injured’. But the numbers kept going up and up.”
Emma went back to Lisa and the woman with the head injury, who was now being treated by an American doctor called Mark.
Lisa said: “I was in a state of shock when I saw everyone on the floor. Two of them were crying and moaning, making noises.
"But the first woman was doing nothing, so I automatically went to her. I could see blood pouring out of her head.
"An American guy called Mark arrived and said he was a physician. His wife and kids were there but he had sent them away – he didn’t want them to see any more.
“He was a real hero. He was taking her pulse and I was holding her hand and trying to find out what her name was.
“Her husband was standing against the wall, frozen in shock. We worked out they were both Italian.
“I couldn’t have walked away and left her. Mark kept saying I was doing really well but all I could do really was hold her hand and try to reassure her.”
Lisa was then joined by Emma to try to help the doctor, who said the woman desperately needed medical attention.
Emma said: “There was a headlight cluster from the car under her body which we had to pull out.
“I could also see a woman under a bus and another guy on the pavement. I saw a rescue boat pull the woman from the water. Then for a minute, all I could do was stare at the Thames.
“After that first aiders and medics started to arrive.”
The two women were taken to a nearby hotel and put into a room for “significant witnesses” before being dropped at a railway station.
Emma added: “We just got a train back to Manchester. We were in such shock. We’re hoping those people we helped are OK.”