Running and screaming as all hell broke loose...
SURVIVORS yesterday described the horrifying and bloody scenes after the bomb exploded.
Teenager Abby Mullen was close to the suicide bomber when the device was detonated as she left the concert.
She said: “As we were leaving the bomb went off centimetres in front of me. People’s skin and blood were everywhere including in my hair and on my bag.
“You never ever expect these things to happen to you but this proves it can happen to anybody.”
Abby, of Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, added: “That sound, the blood and those who were running around clueless will not be leaving my mind any time soon or the minds of those involved.”
Elizabeth Welsby, a 50-year-old teacher from Bolton, said: “All hell broke loose and everyone was running and screaming.
“We did run over two or three posters smeared with blood. Everyone was screaming, lots of people wondering what was going on.”
She described how the concourse of the arena was thick with smoke and the smell of explosive.
Parent Andy Holey said he was blown “about 30ft” by the blast which shook the entire building as he had waited to collect his wife and daughter at the end of the concert.
“It’s shocking what happened. Just carnage everywhere.
“There was a good 20 to 30 of them [victims]. Some were young kids, some were disabled people.”
Mr Holey said he helped emergency services treat the wounded who were “scattered” by the blast near the box office.
Explosion
He added: “As I was waiting an explosion went off and it threw me through the first set of doors about 30ft to the next set of doors.
“When I got up and looked around there was about 30 people scattered everywhere.
“Some of them looked dead, they might have been unconscious but there was a lot of fatalities.
“My first thing was to run in the stadium to try and find my wife and daughter.”
Others survivors suffered terrible injuries. Gary Walker, from Leeds, was with his wife in the foyer waiting to pick up his two daughters.
“We heard the last song, and quite a few people were flooding out,” he said. “Suddenly there was a massive flash and then a bang, smoke.”
He added: “I felt a bit of pain in my foot and my leg. My wife said, ‘I need to lie down’. I lay her down, she’d got a stomach wound and possibly a broken leg. I was about three metres from the actual explosion. I am surprised I got away so lightly.”
Mr Walker said the explosion was by the door in the foyer, next to the merchandise. Glass and metal nuts were strewn over the floor.
He said he lay down next to his wife for up to an hour, until she was carried out on a table as a makeshift stretcher to an ambulance.
His daughter Abigail, who was in the auditorium with sister Sophie at the time of the explosion, said: “I had to make sure I had my sister.
“I grabbed hold of her and pulled hard. Everyone was running and crying.
“We were just trying to figure where everyone was. It was absolutely terrifying.”
Mr Walker described the “fantastic news” when the sisters called him on their mobile phone to say they were safe. Alexandra Bell, 39, from Liverpool, who was staying with her daughter Melissa, 13, at the nearby Radisson Park Inn, said: “You knew there was a bomb. There’s no other way to describe the noise.”
She added: “As soon as Ariana went off stage there was a massive bang. The place shook.
“It was like a swarm of bees. Everyone started to run one way. No one knew what to do.”
Melissa said: “It was so frightening. All the dust came down. It felt like the roof was going to collapse.”
John Young, from Bolton, who was with his wife and daughter at the concert, spoke of the panic as the blast suddenly ripped through.
He said: “It was surreal. A horrible thing. It should have been the best night of my daughter’s life and it turned into the worst.
“We heard a massive bang and panic set in. I managed to grab my daughter and we ran into the road.”
He added: “I didn’t know what to think at that time. It was just pure panic really.”
Oliver Jones, 17, said: “People were then running around covered in blood. I was in the toilet and heard a loud bang. It echoed around the foyer of the arena and people started to run.”
Joanne Johnson added: “The screams were horrific and you knew it was something serious.”
Cherry Dale, 12, who went with her friend Halle Norris, 10, thought she had heard two blasts.
She had travelled with her dad Andy Andrews, 33, and Halle’s mum Chloe Nayman, 28, from Middlesbrough. Cherry said: “Ariana finished her last song and said goodbye. Then there was a massive bang. She was running off the stage.
“That was the first explosion then another went off in a tunnel as people were running out of the arena. People were screaming and hiding under chairs.”
She added: “We saw one little boy who was about six get knocked over and people were running over him.
“The second bomb was close to us. It was as we were leaving.
“Everyone was walking out of the tunnels and it was like the bomb had been thrown in the tunnel where
everyone was running. Outside, people were running in front of cars crying, they just wanted to be safe.”
Anthony Senior dashed over from Bradford to be reunited outside the arena with his wife and two daughters who had been at the concert.
His wife and one daughter were in an ambulance being treated for cuts and bruises.
Daughter Amelia, aged 11, said: “We ended up leaving early because everyone had gone off the stage. We walked out and we’d gone through the gates to actually go out.
“Suddenly something really hot just flew over us and behind me and my sister and we all dropped to the floor.
“I couldn’t really hear anything it was just really scary.”
One father told of his relief that he was reunited with his daughter and said it had been “the best moment of my life”. Nick Haywood, 46, had travelled by train
drive out these eviL Losers:
from Nottingham with daughter Caitlin and her friend, both 16, and was waiting outside to collect them.
He said: “Seeing her on the stairs was a huge relief. It was like she was almost born again. It was the best moment of my life all over again.”
Caitlin, who turns 17 next week, had planned and saved up for the trip for months.
She said: “I knew it was a bomb and we needed to get out.
“I thought the next minute people with guns were going to start coming in.”