A brutal attacker who stabbed an emergency worker in the grounds of the Royal London Hospital has been jailed after being caught by an off-duty policeman.
The man would almost certainly have died if he hadn't been in the hospital where doctors operated on him in the Royal London's reception area.
The 34-year-old was stabbed in the heart as he tried to intervene in a fight between two men in Turner Street in Whitechapel, right outside the hospital.
His attacker, Mohammed Uddin, 36, from Well Street in South Hackney, was jailed at the Old Bailey on Friday to 12 years and nine months after admitting wounding with intent and battery. He was also given six months for possessing a bladed weapon, both sentences to be served together.
The outcome could have been far worse if not for the actions of an off-duty police officer from the Midlands, Pc Mat Evans, who was walking in Turner Street on October 12 when he saw Uddin attacking the emergency worker with a knife.
He chased Uddin and forced him to the ground and was bitten while attempting to get the knife out of his hand — but managed to hold onto him until police arrived.
"Incidents like this make you realise being a police officer isn't just a job," Pc Evans said after the court case. "It's a state of mind. You can never turn off, even when you're not at work.
"There wasn't a choice when I saw the man being stabbed. I had to stop his attacker before he killed someone."
Doctors and hospital staff performed "a miracle saving the man's life", he added.
The emergency worker needed further medical treatment, but has since made a full recovery.
Det Con Gavin Markey, who led the investigation, said: "It's only sheer luck that the man was in the grounds of the hospital and able to get immediate medical treatment.
"This was a brutal attack. Doctors have made it clear he would have died had he not been so close by the hospital."
The Met Police later praised the off-duty officer from Birmingham and recognised his intervention in Turner Street when he acted instinctively, "risking his life own to prevent the attack becoming more serious".
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