I watched my wife die in Thames accident

A university professor today told how he watched his wife die in a freak boating accident.

Nancy Johnson and her husband, Les, were waiting on the banks of the Thames with 35 other people to board a ferry when the tragedy unfolded.

A 14kg stainless steel bollard - used to help tie vessels to the pier - tore loose from the Star Clipper and was sent hurtling through the air and into the crowd on St Katharine's Pier.

Professor Johnson said: "All of a sudden I saw this big metal object flying through the air.

"I managed to move out of the way but it hit Nancy on the head and she collapsed on the ground. If she had been a few inches the other way, the bollard would have never hit her."

He added: "When we were in the hospital and I knew there was nothing else the doctors could do I held her pulse and watched as she slipped away."

An official report into the accident has found the stainless steel bollard had come away just a month before the accident near Tower Bridge on 2 May last year. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found the resulting repair work "failed catastrophically" leading to a series of tragic events. Professor Johnson, 57, from the University of Greenwich School of Business, added: "I will be taking legal action against those responsible.

"It was a needless and tragic accident and my wife should not have died. She was a very special person with a beautiful smile. I was married for 33 years. Nancy was a lovely, kind person and I will miss her very much."

Dr Johnson, who lived with her husband in Rotherhithe, died in hospital one week before her 54th birthday.

The couple's daughter Helen, 24, a postgraduate law student, said she was devastated by the death of her mother.

Describing her as a "very special lady", she said: "I was lucky to have a mum like her. I didn't just love her, I liked her and admired her."

The report found that the bollard fitted onto the ferry, which provides a Thames shuttle service, was not part of the original build specification and "had evolved empirically through a series of modifications in reaction to earlier, less catastrophic failures".

The MAIB has issued a number of recommendations in a bid to prevent a repeat of the accident.