Terror of injured who lay for hours waiting for help

BADLY-HURT survivors have told of their terror and confusion as they waited in the bombed-out Manchester Arena.

Schoolboy Adam Lawler, 15, was seriously injured while his friend Olivia Campbell, also 15, died.

He spent a week in intensive care and had five operations to remove more than 20 pieces of shrapnel in his body, one of which left him blind in his right eye.

But despite the severity of his condition, he was left on the floor for as long as two hours before being taken to hospital.

Recalling the traumatic moments after the blast, Adam, from Bury, Lancashire, said: ‘All I remember is a white light and very severe ringing in my ears. It felt like I was dreaming, in a very bad nightmare. It was surreal.’ Victims Josie Howarth, 62, and Janet Senior were forced to improvise with a handbag strap as they waited for help.

Speaking last year, Miss Howarth said: ‘ I took my handbag strap off and said to Janet, “Can you help me tie a tourniquet on this leg?”’ And that’s when I realised she was injured [too].’

As they waited, Mrs Senior, 60, from Knottingly, West Yorkshire, told her sister to hold her hand ‘because I thought our time had come’.

They were overcome with emotion after recalling that they had to wait two hours for help – with paramedics later telling them the tourniquet had prevented Miss Howarth from bleeding to death.