Two users of the same online bulletin board were in the same carriage of a London Tube train that was involved with the blast last week.
Doesn’t sound that remarkable until you discover how they found each other.
Badger Kitten (BK), the pseudonym used by a young female on the urban75 discussion board, posted a long, emotional rendition of the days event. Among the 600 readers that saw the story was Markm, who had also been on an exploding train. Whilst reading the story markm realised that he must have been on the same carriage as BK.
Markm posted a comment on the story.
BK came to realise that the not only had Markm been in the same carriage as her, but that he had passed valuable, possibly life saving, information to her about escaping from the train, relayed from the driver.
Mark and I have talked and worked out that we were in the same front carriage and feet away from each other and he was the man who got the message to me from the driver that we could escape out of the front and walk to Russell Square and to keep off the tracks.
This was the message I passed down and several people behind me were thus able to follow Mark’s instructions from the driver and get out.
So, well done Mark and hooray that you were there and able to stay calm. We all helped each other. We are going to meet up later. The Internet is great, isn’t it? And urban 75 has proved invaluable.
Urban75, founded in 1995, has been providing valuable information on a vast range of subjects since then – all commercial free. We chatted to its editor about this most recent of uses, he told us, “it makes me humbled and honoured to run the site. It’s a good example of how the Internet can reach out and connect people.”
Without the discussion boards on urban75 or the Internet, the likelihood of two people caught up in the explosions meeting again, is highly unlikely.
In a further example of Digital-Lifestyles, BBC News found BK’s original posting and approached her for its inclusion on the BBC News Website – after they cleaned it up a little for public consumption.
Another example of an esteemed news source getting content from online bulletin boards/blogs.
Urban75
London Attacks
BK postings
markm postings
BK diary on BBC News