A British politician whose brother died in the Bali bombings in 2002 desperately attempted to resuscitate a critically injured police officer who was stabbed in a terrorist attack outside the Houses of Parliament in the heart of London.
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Tobias Ellwood, a parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign Office, has been praised as an "absolute hero" after giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the critically injured officer, named as Keith Palmer, and applying pressure to his multiple stab wounds in the frantic minutes after the attack.
Mr Ellwood, a former British Army soldier, was among a group of people who remained with Mr Palmer, a 48-year-old husband and father, until paramedics arrived.
Mr Elwood was photographed kneeling over the policeman's body, with blood smeared on his forehead, as he tried to save his life.
Despite their efforts, Mr Palmer was among five people who died when a lone-wolf attacker mowed down pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge before crashing into the gates of the Parliament about 2.40pm on Wednesday, local time. The attacker, described as a middle-aged man, was shot dead after stabbing the officer.
The Telegraph in London quoted an unnamed witness who claimed that Mr Ellwood "ran in [the] opposite direction to everyone else, he ran towards the injured police officer" in the seconds after the attack. Mr Ellwood was said to be "well but shaken" following the incident.
Scotland Yard said Mr Palmer had served as a police officer for 15 years. He was not armed when he was attacked and killed.
Sir Alan Duncan, a Tory minister who works with Mr Ellwood in the Foreign Office, told The Telegraph that Mr Ellwood "has done very well. He was the right man in the right place."
"He has a military background and he is the sort of person who leaps into action. He is just a proper get-on-with-it guy in a crisis. I'm going to give him a very stiff drink," he said.
Ben Howlett, the Tory MP, tweeted that Mr Ellwood was an "absolute hero".
@Tobias_Ellwood is an absolute hero for what he did to help the policeman this afternoon!??? Ben Howlett MP (@ben4bath) March 22, 2017
Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "Today, Tobias gave MPs a good name. He was utterly heroic, pure and simple. He went above and beyond and did all he could to save a police officer."
Mr Ellwood has been a Conservative MP for Bournemouth East since 2005 and was appointed parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign Office in July 2014.
His brother Jon, 39, was among 202 people - including 88 Australians - who died in the Bali bombings in 2002, when twin blasts tore through the nightclub area of Kuta.
Jon was a teacher who had been in Bali for a conference, and died in the second blast in the Sari Club.
In 2012, Mr Ellwood told the BBC it took his family three days to confirm his brother had been killed. He and his sister flew to Bali at the time to bring identify his brother's body and bring him home.
"We just wanted to bring my brother's body back to Britain, as simple as that. But it's not that simple," he said at the time.
"You need death certificates in both languages, embalming certificates, sealing certificates.
"All these processes require time and people to participate. None of that happened.
"I had to do many of those things myself to the point where I ended up screwing the lid down on the coffin myself. That can't be right."
Mr Ellwood is a former Army captain in the Royal Green Jackets. Between 1991 to 1996 he served in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Kuwait, Germany, Gibraltar and Bosnia, according to his biography on the UK Government's website.
