Page:Hillsborough Taylor Interim Report Cm765.pdf/26

 Headquarters to the Hillsborough police control asking if ambulances were required. This was on the instruction of Chief Inspector Edmundson who had heard over the radio, as had Police Constable Waugh himself, crowd noise and snatches of speech from Hillsborough suggesting distress and possible injuries. The reply from the control box was: no reports of injuries but keep standing by. At 3.07 pm after hearing from the ground that there might be injuries, police Headquarters notified SYMAS that ambulances might be required. Then, seconds later, Mr Murray's request for a fleet of ambulances was relayed to SYMAS. They reacted at once. Ambulances began to arrive at the Leppings Lane entrance at 3.13 pm and at the Penistone Road entrance at 3.17 pm. In all, some 42 ambulances attended, 31 of them from SYMAS and 11 from neighbouring authorities. By 4.30 pm, they had conveyed some 172 casualties to the Northern General Hospital and the Royal Hallamshire Hospital.

Gymnasium

The gymnasium had been in use for serving meals to the police. When the Major Disaster Plan was ordered, it was cleared and divided into two. One end became a temporary mortuary; the other was used as a casualty clearing area for the injured. As the stretchers, designed and improvised, brought in more and more casualties, the scene was initially and inevitably chaotic and harrowing. There was intense distress amongst the injured and bereaved; relatives were reluctant to be parted from the dead and sought to revive them. There were people looking for missing friends and relations; there were recriminations, there were scuffles. Some of those involved were the worse for drink. Doctors and nurses had followed the casualties in from the pitch and sought to attend the injured as best they could in the adverse circumstances. Those in most urgent need of hospital treatment were taken to ambulances as they arrived, triage being employed to determine priorities. Doctors were requested by the police to examine each person thought to be deceased to confirm and certify death. A police Constable was detailed to attend and guard each of the dead and a photograph of each was taken by a police photographer so that relatives coming to identify bodies could be spared the ordeal of searching amongst all who had died.

The Dead and the Injured

Of the 95 who died, the evidence suggests that at least 16 and probably 21 came through gate C after it opened at 2.52 pm. That is established by the statements of relatives and friends who came through with them but survived.

By commendable hard work, a team of pathologists headed by Professor Usher completed post-mortem examinations on all the deceased within 48 hours. They found that 88 of the victims were male and seven female. Thirty-eight were under 20 years of age, 39 were between 20 and 29 years and only three were over 50. In virtually every case the cause of death was crush asphyxia due to compression of the chest wall against other bodies or fixed structures so as to prevent inhalation. In all but nine cases that was the sole cause. In one, pressure on the chest had been so great as to rupture the aorta; in six cases there were also injuries to the head, neck or chest; in the remaining two cases, natural disease was a contributory factor. In 18 cases bones were fractured. Thirteen of those were rib fractures. However, one was a fractured femur, one a fractured radius and the remaining three involved fractures of bones or cartilages round the voice box. These injuries suggest the victims may have been trodden while on the ground.

Blood samples were taken from the dead. No alcohol was found in any of the females. Of the males, 51 had no more than 10 milligrams per cent in their blood which is negligible; 15 had over 80 milligrams per cent and six over 120 milligrams per cent.

Although the great majority of those who died were in pen 3, at least five were in pen 4. Most deaths occurred at the front of the pens but there were a few fatalities further back.

In all, some 730 people complained of being injured inside the ground and 36 outside it. Of the 730, about 30% are thought to have entered through gate C after 2.52 pm. The largest category of injury was bruising, especially to the ribs and chest. Rh