UK Police Officers Who Gave First Aid to Skripals Tell of Pride - Reports
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th December, 2018) Two UK police officers, who were among those to give the first aid to Russian ex-intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, accused of treason, and his daughter Yulia, after their poisoning in the United Kingdom, detailed how they tried to rescue the Skripals, adding they did their best and were proud of their work, local media reported.
The Guardian newspaper noted that Sgt. Tracey Holloway and police constable Alex Collins spoke in detail for the first time on the Salisbury poisoning incident.
Holloway and Collins said they reported for duty at 03:00 p.m. (15:00 GMT) on March 5, hoping to have a relaxed day and "not get too involved in anything." However, at 04:15 p.m., they received a call with a medical tasking for a man and a woman who slumped on a bench in a shopping center.
Collins said it took them two minutes to get to the shopping mall where they found the female (Yulia Skripal) who was assisted by a member of the public who turned out to be a doctor. Collins suggested that if the doctor had not helped Yulia she would have died. The male (Sergei Skripal) was sat on the bench in an "unusual position" and was unresponsive, according to the police officer.
"We tried to help medically and to find out what had happened. Our first thought was that it was drugs," Collins argued.
The officer said they had not met the Skripals before so they identified the father and daughter after finding their personal belongings.
Meanwhile, a group of detectives went to the Skripals' house. One of these officers had been exposed to a toxic substance which left him critically ill.
Collins said that after he went off his shift the instinct told him to get changed and leave his clothes in the garage.
The Skripals' name emerged in the media on March 5 and cordons began to be placed across Salisbury around the spots that the two had visited. Holloway said they knew that the nerve agent was involved from the media.
The officers added they feared the Skripals would not recover from the poisoning and called the fact that they did "brilliant."
Moreover, the two officers believed that the poisoning would be an isolated incident, saying that the news about the subsequent poisoning of Charles Rowley and Dawn Sturgess hit them like "a bombshell." The attack seemed more personal to them since both officers lived in Salisbury, they added.
"You often look back and think I wish we'd done that better. I reckon we did our absolute best that day. I think we were very lucky we didn't have more casualties," Collins concluded.
London has blamed the Salisbury poisoning incident on Moscow but Russia has denied any involvement in the incident, noting that no proof of its role has been provided.
Moreover, the UK Porton Down laboratory has said it was unable to confirm that the substance used in the Salisbury attack was produced in Russia.
Moscow has said that it sent dozens of requests to London asking that it be granted access to the investigation into the poisoning incident. Moscow has also offered to work together with London and carry out a joint investigation into the attack. London did not respond to these proposals, instead claiming that Russia rejected its calls for cooperation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the Salisbury poisoning case was falling apart due to the lack of proof of Russia's involvement in the attack on the Skripals.