Tales of heroism and survival

At an inquest into the 2005 terror bombings in London, a justice recounts the stories of lives saved, and lost. For five months the stories poured out, describing the worst and best of human behavior.
Stories of bystanders fighting their way into mangled, pitch-black subway cars and refusing to leave passengers whose lives were slipping away. Stories of body parts strewn in the rubble of a sliced-open bus. Stories of grievously rift gold wounded people who somehow cheated death because of resilience, luck and the extraordinary efforts of strangers.
And the story, too, of how four British men of Pakistani descent committed the worst act of terrorism in British history on July 7, 2005, setting off four bombs on London’s transportation network that killed 56 people, including themselves, and wounded at least 700.
Nearly six years later, after a highly unusual inquest in which the final moments of each of the 52 victims’ lives unfolded in a courtroom here in forensic detail, the coroner in the case made her ruling: ‘‘ Unlawful killing.’’
It was a foregone rift gold conclusion, as, in a way, was her other finding: ‘‘ That the evidence I have heard does not justify the conclusion that any failings on the part of any organization or individual caused or contributed to any of the deaths.’’
But the coroner, Justice Heather Hallett, explained that the inquest, standard practice after violent deaths in Britain, had a larger purpose. In this case, it was the only way for the surviving families to ‘‘ find out what happened, how their loved ones died and if their deaths could have been prevented.’’