A JULY 7 bomb survivor cheated death – by choosing not to sit next to one of the bombers.

Lisa French would have seated herself next to one of the London suicide bombers on a double-deck bus, but changed her mind because there was not enough room for her laptop and his rucksack, an inquest heard.

Ms French boarded a bus along with teenage terrorist Hasib Hussain as London’s transport network ground to a halt in the wake of the first three explosions that morning.

The 18-year-old, carrying a large backpack, sat down on the top deck and, but for the fact that she was also carrying a bag, Ms French would have placed herself next to him.

Hussain detonated his home-made device moments later, killing 13 people on the red double-decker at Tavistock Square.

Overcome with emotion as she addressed the inquests, Ms French told how she had followed the bomber up the stairs of the packed number 30 bus.

She said: “I made the decision not to go and sit next to him because I was aware we both had very big bags and that he, we, you know, would be taking up a lot of room.”

She picked a seat about four rows in front of the bomber.

Though she had no memories of the blast, she recalled waking up to see a void behind her where the rear of the bus had been blown apart.

“There were no seats left behind me attached to the bus,” she said.

“There was literally no bus left. It just dropped down behind our seats.”

Referring to images of the wrecked vehicle showing a pole protruding from a twisted seat, she said: “That’s where I woke up.”

Earlier, she told how she noticed Hussain as he boarded the bus.

Unlike other passengers, he tried to avoid knocking into her while she stopped to speak to the driver.

“The man with the backpack took his backpack off his shoulder and held it like I was holding my laptop to squeeze past and that’s the reason I really noticed him because I can remember thinking, there’s one polite person left boarding this bus,” she said.

The inquest heard Miss French, from Newcastle Upon Tyne, had been due to attend a business meeting in Angel, north London, on the morning of July 7.

The BT employee, who travelled into the capital from Newcastle, was forced to take the number 30 bus after arriving at King’s Cross to find the Underground station closed.

On board, fellow passengers Australians Tania Calabrese and Antonio Cancellara, seated directly behind her, spoke of hearing a “bang” at Edgware Road earlier that morning, while someone else suggested there may have been a bomb.

Moments later she blacked out.

Hussain, 18, the youngest of the four suicide attackers,detonated his device nearly an hour after explosions ripped through three Tube trains.

The King’s Cross bomb was detonated by former Rawthorpe High School student Jermaine Lindsay.

The inquest is looking into the deaths of the 52 victims of the terror blasts.