As the dead and the wounded poured into the Bombay Hospital tonight, injured foreigners, including some Britons, relived their horrific ordeals – and their lucky escapes.

Among them was Vinay Kuntawala, a 68-year-old British pensioner from Surrey who was holidaying at the Taj Hotel in Bombay with his son, Deepak, when the militants struck on Wednesday night.

They were having a final snack on the first floor of the Taj before heading to the airport to fly back to Britain when Deepak noticed a boat pulling up to the peer in front of the hotel.

"I saw this particular boat which seemed overweight," Deepak, 35, told The Times as his father nursed a broken leg.

"It was full of these young guys in casual clothes. A few moments later, I noticed everyone running away from the waterfront and I heard some shooting. I thought it was a parade at first, then a fight. Then they started coming up the stairs into the hotel."

What followed were the most terrifying few hours of their lives as they barricaded themselves into a private banquet suite with other guests – including the entire board of directors of Unilever, the consumer goods company.

The board had been meeting in a nearby conference room when the militants attacked.

For five hours, the group waited in the room, following the news on their mobile phones and BlackBerrys as the militants shot indiscriminately and lobbed grenades in the corridors of the historic hotel.

Members of the Taj staff even made a makeshift lavatory and continued to serve people water.

But when the shooting and explosions became so close that Deepak reckoned the militants were only 15 metres away, he decided to take drastic action.

"We knew they were after Brits and Americans. And I knew we had the entire Unilever board with us, so we were very vulnerable," he said.

He ripped down the curtains, tied them into ropes, smashed the windows, and helped to lower the group one by one onto the tarmac below. Only his father slipped on the way down and broke his leg when he hit the ground.

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