Background: Psychological responses in emergency personnel deployed in terrorist events have rarely been studied. Methods: 14 emergency physicians and 5 paramedics were interviewed by telephone about 14 days after the London bombings, 7. July 2005. The interviews were analyzed using the Gottschalk-Gleser content analysis of speech for the assessment of affects. Coping was measured using a self-report questionnaire. Results: About 50% of the personnel reported psychological distress, i. e. affects related to anxiety, quality of life and social relations. Problem-focused coping was used more frequently than emotion-focused coping. There were no associations between coping and affects. Conclusions: Terrorist attacks pose threats and challenges even to experienced emergency medical personnel. Future work should identify facilitating conditions for coping with stress imposed by terrorist attacks.