Residents living around Southmead Hospital have spoken of their shock at seeing patients being led away from A&E down their street and past their houses after a bomb scare sparked a major incident.
Patients who had been admitted with serious injuries or waiting to be seen at Southmead's A&E and the next door Minor Injuries Unit were evacuated from the hospital, and as staff calmly led them away, were taken to a nearby leisure centre. For the residents living around Southmead Hospital, which occupies a huge site between the north Bristol suburbs of Horfield and Southmead, the scenes outside their homes were not what they expected to see.
The most dramatic scenes happened in Dorian Way, the residential road that runs off Gloucester Road, past Horfield Leisure Centre and down to the A&E unit side of the hospital site.
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Jodie Dickinson watched from the first signs that there was an issue at the hospital. She said: "All I saw at first was all the police and fire engines racing here, and then suddenly the police cordoned off the bottom bit of the road from the road sign for Dorian Mews. I went down and asked the policeman what on Earth was going on, and he said all he could say was it was 'an incident'."
But soon Jodie and the other residents of Dorian Way realised it was a serious issue.
"Then, gradually, patients started being evacuated up past us in the road. Some of them were walking, some of them were in chairs being pushed by relatives or nurses. Then those patient transport ambulances kept going up and down, I guess for the more serious patients. It was carnage here," she said.
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"I asked one of the patients what was happening and they said it was a bomb scare and they were being told to get as far away from the A&E department as possible, and they were being sent to the leisure centre, to be treated there," she added. "It wasn't loads going up along the street, there were more in the ambulances I think.
"I had an appointment at the hospital myself, in a unit that's right above the A&E, and that was cancelled," she added.
Ray Sanders, who lives nearby, said he thought it was another hospital emergency, until he saw the bomb squad. "I was just coming back from the shops and all hell broke loose," he said.
"Living near the hospital you're used to hearing sirens all the time, of course, so I didn't think anything of it. Then I saw the bomb squad race past the house and realised this was something different. Then I saw that they had cordoned off the road at the top, we had police everywhere," he added. "I couldn't believe it."
Terry Iles lives on the other side of the vast Southmead Hospital site, next to the main entrance on Monks Park Avenue. "I saw three police cars and then the Bomb Disposal vehicle. I thought 'bloody hell, what's going on in there then?' It's not what you expect to see at all," he said.
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