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<\/p>\nA Birmingham brave dad who risked his life to help a young boy fatally injured in the Barcelona terror attack is to receive a Pride of Birmingham award.<\/p>\n
Harry Athwal, from Great Barr ran to help seven-year-old Julian Cadman, who had been hit when a terrorist drove a van down Las Ramblas, killing 13 people and injuring 130 August 17, 2017.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As hundreds of tourists fled the horrific scene, Harry rushed into the street to aid the injured.<\/p>\n
Despite being warned by police to evacuate the area, he defied officers to cradle Julian in his arms until paramedics arrived.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the seven-year-old schoolboy had already died, but his family have told the brave Brummie how his actions have given them huge comfort as they grieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that moment you have a split second to decide what you\u2019re going to do,\u201d says Harry, who has two sons, Deirnn, 19, and Khye, aged eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you going to hide? Are you going to run? Or are you going to out and do something?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my instinct that I had to go and help somebody. I had to do something. It\u2019s in my DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry, a Project manager had only just arrived in Barcelona with his sister Kinde Dehr and a group of friends an hour before the terror struck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember it was a beautiful day, just a normal afternoon on a city break,\u201d he says<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, the silence was broken and you could hear screams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the van came into my vision for about five seconds. The noise was phenomenal as it hit people \u2013 thump after thump after thump.<\/p>\n
\u201cStraight away, I realised it was a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart was thumping in my chest. I shouted at the whole restaurant \u2018Don\u2019t move from here!\u2019 and then I shot down the stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry pushed through a stampede of people coming into the restaurant for safety to get out to the street and try to help.<\/p>\n
As he looked around at the utter scene of devastation, just seconds after the van had driven past, Harry saw Julian lying on the walkway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obviously carnage. There were handbags and shoes everywhere,\u201d recalls Harry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I saw the body of a child and straight away I just ran over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was going to get my t-shirt off to stem the bleeding, but when I dropped to my knees I could see his head was crushed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis leg was bent the wrong way, and there was blood coming out of his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was checking for a pulse and he didn\u2019t have one. I put my hand on his back and I thought he had gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was stroking his hair and in floods of tears but I stayed with him. I sat there because I was not going to leave this child in the middle of the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police were telling me to move but I wouldn\u2019t leave him. All the time I was thinking the terrorists could come back but I was not leaving that child.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, he looked like my own son. He was my son\u2019s age, seven or eight. I just ran my hands through his hair, it was about comforting him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry was determined to stay with Julian until paramedics arrived, despite police officers trying to get him to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no way I was leaving that boy,\u201d he repeats.<\/p>\n
\u201cA police officer came over after three or four minutes and told me to move on to get away from danger. I said I would not.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was screaming at me to move and I was screaming back at him to get an ambulance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a child, he was the same age as my son, I was not leaving him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know he had passed, but if it was my child would I leave him? No I wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry stayed on the street, cradling Julian, who was of dual Australian and British nationality, until paramedics arrived and took him away.<\/p>\n
Harry has been in touch with the boy\u2019s grandparents, Noreen and Tony Cadman, who have thanked him for his heroic actions.<\/p>\n
Now, he says he hopes one day to meet the family, although his admits he regrets that he couldn\u2019t save Julian\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have two regrets,\u201d he admits. \u201cOne is that I couldn\u2019t save Julian. The other is that I couldn\u2019t prevent it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I had have been further down Las Ramblas then I would have chased him, and I wouldn\u2019t have stopped until I caught him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harry will receive the Pride of Birmingham\u2019s Outstanding Bravery award.<\/p>\n
Harry and 10 other winners will be presented with their awards at a ceremony at the University of Birmingham this Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Birmingham dad admits he was \u2018speechless\u2019 when he found out he had been named a Pride of Birmingham winner.<\/p>\n
But he says he would do it all again without question.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy circumstances were slightly unique as I only had a split second to decide,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you witness something absolutely horrifying, where dozens of people are being hit by a van at 50 mph or 60 mph and getting thrown in the air, you are stunned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a Sikh, and in my Sikhism it is my duty to go and help somebody who is hurt or who is being bullied.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat, in a sense, overtook me. I didn\u2019t have time to think.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody was running in the opposite direction and you\u2019re the only one going the other way \u2013 it\u2019s quite harrowing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police tell you to run, hide and inform.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy answer to that is how long can we hide for? We have to stand up and we have to make a stand.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Birmingham brave dad who risked his life to help a young boy fatally injured in the Barcelona terror attack is to receive a Pride of Birmingham award. Harry Athwal, from Great Barr ran to help seven-year-old Julian Cadman, who had been hit when a terrorist drove a van down Las Ramblas, killing 13 people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,53,112],"tags":[863,862],"class_list":["post-25889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-latest","category-top-stories","tag-harry-athwal","tag-pride-of-birmingham-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}