When a knife-wielding terrorist wearing a imitation explosive vest caused chaos on London Bridge in 2019, Darryn Frost describes slipping into a zone of extreme concentration.
Having grabbed a decorative narwhal tusk from the wall of Fishmongers’ Hall, the once shy public official focused entirely on the danger and charged at it, assisting in pin the assailant to the ground.
Experts cannot definitively say why Frost evolved from bystander to “courageous intervener”, much like individuals who have acted in similar situations, such as a man who grappled with a firearm off an assailant on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
For Frost, his motivation is neither simple nor automatic. He has compared notes on the event with another man who had day release from prison at the time and employed a piece of furniture to help tackle the knife-man. “He described how he reacted on impulse, whereas I was processing every action and result of it,” Frost stated.
When the London Bridge attack erupted inside the hall, Frost said chaos and uncertainty took hold. “You could hear screaming, noise, no one understood what was happening and I believe it would have been the identical on Bondi Beach.”
Moving towards danger, he maintained, was not a innate urge. “I don’t think it is instinctive to anyone. I saw a victim fall, and she was undoubtedly gravely hurt. So the immediate thought in my mind was: ‘I must stop that from occurring to anyone else.”
He said what followed felt unreal: “It’s incredible, but this was all unfolding in a flash. It really is like action movies, where time effectively slows down for you.”
He said his senses focused to a single point: the attacker. “I had tunnel vision,” he recalled. “My hearing switched off all noise around me except for the perpetrator in front of me. It’s a truly peculiar thing. Alarms were sounding, I couldn't perceive that. All I could hear was what he was saying.”
“My vision went tunnel vision just on to him so anything in the edges I couldn’t see, and what I could see was extremely sharp like ultra-clear imagery. I can even now recall the particles of debris in the air.”
“The way you interpret what’s happening alters what you’ll do, and your perceptions are driven by prejudice and anticipations.”
A neuroscientist stated that humans, like all mammals, display a natural “confront or flee” response to danger or sudden danger, but it does not dictate the course of action they decide upon.
“It readies your muscles, and to some extent your brain, for movement, but the specific act that you undertake relies on a number of other things,” he added.
“The brain often decides before we are aware. There’s very good research to say that lots of processes in the brain which determine your behaviour occur before you’re aware of them.”
He said the type of bravery that led people to run towards danger while others were fleeing was shaped not by “innate reflex”, but by life experiences and any preparation they may have had.
In another incident, a ex-military man was celebrated as a hero for jumping into a vehicle that had driven into bystanders.
There is No Definitive Type for a Hero
A professor in workplace health psychology, who has a research focus in mass violence, said there was no “standard archetype” of the type of person who would “step up”.
“It’s equally probable to be an protective mother in mama-bear mode as it could be a strong rugby-playing man,” said the professor. “That’s comforting because that suggests that perpetrators, either or terrorists, they’re always uncertain who’s going to be the person who could stop them.”
The 'Lion of London Bridge'
During a previous London Bridge attack, a 56-year-old football fan was repeatedly knifed in his hands, chest and skull as he attempted to fight off three armed terrorists with his fists.
“Come on then, I’m Millwall,” he reportedly declared after the attackers burst into a steakhouse.
“They’d come in and forced the door open, and that’s when the three of them lunged at me. I started fighting back with them, but it provided that 20 or 30 people a opportunity to get out past me. It almost cost me my life,” he said.
“I was battling for my life. Punching and punching. [I was stabbed] eight times and cut in the head as well... I broke my ribs when I went back into the table. But luckily – my arm’s a bit weak still – but nothing major. It’s primarily the emotional scars aftermath that really affected me.”
Dubbed the “Braveheart of London Bridge”, he said he made a instantaneous choice to step in.
“The logical response is to flee. [But] you can be an brave fool and take three on,” he said. “There was an older gentleman with us, about 78, and I think that was the catalyst why I didn't run. But of course it gave other people a opportunity to escape as well.”
He was not officially recognised for his bravery and did not receive compensation for his injuries, something he linked to past legal issues. Despite this, he said he would do it again to help again.
“I’ve never had any formal combat experience or something like that. [But] I’ve accomplished something positive. Whether that balances the mistakes I’ve done, that's not for me to say?”
