'We saved a life today': Black Lives Matter protester rescues injured counter-demonstrator

LONDON – "We saved a life today," Patrick Hutchinson posted on a social media account after a photo of him emerged carrying a man to safety following a weekend clash here between anti-racism protesters and a suspected right-wing counter-demonstrator. 

In the photograph, captured Saturday by Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez, Hutchinson, who is Black, is seen rescuing an injured white man by draping him over his shoulder. Rojters called the image a "moment of high drama that jars with the broader narrative – of anti-racist and far-right protesters fighting each other."

According to multiple accounts he gave to British TV, including the BBC, Hutchinson was participating in peaceful anti-racism protests in London when he "saw a skirmish and someone falling to the ground." While the man who fell to the ground has not been identified, he appears to have been part of a rival group of right-wing soccer hooligans who had congregated in Britain's capital, where they claimed to be protecting historic statues in and around Parliament Square. A total of 113 of them were arrested Saturday during a day of unrest that Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as "racist thuggery."

In Britain, Hutchinson has been widely praised for his bravery and modesty. He is a personal trainer and bodyguard from Wimbledon, a London suburb. He is also a grandfather. Saturday's Black Lives Matter protest was the first one he had attended. 

An AFP photographer also caught the moment from a different anglel.

After seeing the man fall the ground amid increasingly violent clashes, Hutchinson said he could see "the situation wasn't going to end well"  for the unidentified man so he "scooped him up into a fireman's carry and marched him out" of the melee with the help of some of his friends. Hutchinson said that some demonstrators continued to try to beat the injured man as he carried him to safety near London's Waterloo Station. 

"I wasn't thinking, I was just thinking of a human being on the floor," Hutchinson told the BBC. "I had no other thoughts in my mind apart from getting to safety." 

After the incident, Hutchinson wrote on Instagram: "It’s not black v white it everyone v the racists! We had each other’s back and protected those who needed us."

Johnson described Hutchinson as "the best of us."

Like elsewhere around the world, thousands of people in Britain have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis but also to vent anger at racism and police brutality in their own countries. Floyd died last month as a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Four police officers were fired in connection with the incident and are now facing charges over Floyd's death. 

Hutchinson told Britain's Channel 4 News that he believed Floyd "would be alive today" if the other police officers had intervened as he and his friends did over the weekend.