The Day 100 Strangers Lifted a Bus

On Thursday, May 28, 2015, just before 6pm, Antony Shields was riding his unicycle home along Hoe Street in Walthamstow, east London. Shields - known by his stage name Wonder Nose - had been performing on unicycles since 1982. He'd appeared on the Jonathan Ross Show and was a familiar figure in the area.

At the junction with Church Hill, he lost his balance while waiting for an oncoming car to pass. He fell directly into the path of a number 212 double-decker bus as it turned right.

"The bus came from nowhere," Shields later told the Evening Standard. "It was coming at me like a rhinoceros in the zoo. I remember everything. The bus was on top of my leg. My foot bent back. I felt hot, very hot. I was looking at the driver and said: God, is this the way I'm going to die?"

The Lift

Witnesses heard Shields scream as his legs were crushed beneath the wheel. His dreadlocks were trapped under it too. People poured out of nearby restaurants - Turtle Bay, Pizza Express, cafes along Hoe Street.

One man took charge. Shields recalled: "One man came and said we are going to help you. He said to the driver: Can you open the door so the people upstairs and downstairs can help lift the bus? He said 'Come on!', and people ran out of the shops to help."

Zoheb Khalid, 28, was one of the first. "I remember thinking this will be futile, what are three people going to do?" he told the local paper. He cut his fingers on sharp metal underneath the bus during the rescue - the only bystander injury.

The video, filmed from flats above Hoe Street, shows what happened next. Between 50 and 100 strangers surrounded the 12-tonne bus and pushed together until it rocked backward several feet. During the chaos, Shields managed to pull his own dreadlocks free from under the wheel.

Stephen Hines, 42, an off-duty London Ambulance Service paramedic, was the first medical professional on scene. He applied pressure to the wound and administered pain relief. He didn't even know the crowd had lifted the bus until later: "Everyone told me they had got him out from under the bus. I assumed they had taken his arms and legs and pulled. We were told later on that they had lifted the bus physically off him."

Hines added: "There is a reasonably strong possibility that if no-one was able to put pressure on the wound he could have bled to death."

The Injuries

Shields suffered a broken leg, a broken ankle, and a serious groin wound - likely caused by a spoke from his own unicycle. Doctors considered amputating his foot. He needed skin grafts and multiple surgeries.

He spent a month in the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. His doctor told him his survival was "a miracle."

Seeing the Video

"When they gave me the Kindle, I started crying," Shields said. "They saved me. People generally go about their business, but everybody was trying to help."

Witness Bushra Khalid described the scene: "There must have been at least 50 people all coming together to actually lift the double decker bus off him. There was people of all different races and cultures and together they helped lift the bus off."

Another bystander, Oasis Mastara, said: "I witnessed how people united to push the bus off him. The world would be a better place if we loved each other like this every day."

Shields walked again. When asked if he'd return to unicycling, he said: "I have learned enough from that bike."