A survivor of the UK train stabbing rampage has recalled the terrifying moment she begged for her life — only for the attacker to tell her, “The devil’s not going to win.”
Dayna Arnold was in the same carriage as the knifeman when he began slashing “anyone he could find” during the horrifying attack aboard a London-bound train in eastern England shortly after 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“I was moving with the crowd, but then I was pushed into some seats. I looked back and saw the knifeman running, so I slid down to the floor,” said Arnold, 48, speaking to The Sun.
Andy Gray, 37, and Dayna Arnold, 48, were on the train at Peterborough when the attack unfolded — and Arnold says she pleaded with the knifeman to spare her life.
“He came at me with the knife and I begged, ‘Please don’t,’” she recalled. “Then something shifted in his face, and he just carried on. I feel very fortunate to still be alive.”
Arnold, who was traveling with her friend Gray, remembered the attacker’s chilling words as he turned away. “He said, ‘The devil’s not going to win,’ and then continued on,” she told The Sun.
The brutal rampage left 11 people injured, including two who remain in critical condition.
Officials rushed to the scene of the brutal stabbing soon after the attack.
“I was waiting because I could still hear him in the carriage,” Arnold recalled. “I heard the doors open and ran off the train. I saw him take off running, and minutes later police rushed past me — then I saw him get tasered.”
A 32-year-old British man has since been taken into custody on suspicion of attempted murder after the attack, which prompted a major armed police response in the small market town of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.
A second man was also detained but was later released without charge.
Arnold described the suspect as “quite tall, with dark-colored skin,” wearing dark clothing and a hat over shoulder-length braided hair.
Police officers were seen searching the tracks in front of an LNER Azuma train at Huntingdon Station in eastern England on November 1, 2025, following the horrific stabbing spree.
Arnold’s friend, Andy Gray, acted quickly to save a young man’s life by using his belt as a makeshift tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
“There was a young lad, only about 19 or 20, who had been cut and stabbed really badly,” Gray told The Sun. “He had a gash on his arm and several puncture wounds under his arm. He somehow got past me and was panicking, walking through saying, ‘Please, somebody help me, I’ve been stabbed.’”
Gray and Arnold had only boarded the train at the previous stop in Peterborough when chaos erupted.
“We just heard this sudden commotion and the sound of people panicking,” Gray recalled. “I looked down and saw this huge knife plunging into people. I got out of my seat and grabbed Dayna to get her out, but her bag strap got caught on the seat. Then the wall of people panicking swept me away, and we were separated.”
