Arena bomb girl, 8, ‘could have survived’
THE youngest victim of the Manchester Arena bombing could have survived with better first aid from ambulance crews, a public inquiry heard yesterday.
Saffie-Rose Roussos, eight, died after Salman Abedi detonated his homemade device as fans streamed out of an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
Her parents believed she had died instantly but a new expert report has found there were missed chances to save her.
Heartbreakingly, it said Saffie asked a paramedic ‘Am I going to die?’ as she was being taken to hospital by ambulance.
The schoolgirl, who was only five yards from the jihadi, was bleeding badly from injuries to her legs and was pronounced dead a little over an hour after the blast.
But no one used simple tourniquets or splints to apply pressure to stem the bleeding, the report said. Previously the official inquiry into the attack heard only one of the 22 victims, John Atkinson, 28, could have lived had paramedics treated him earlier.
But now it has heard that Saffie ‘ may’ have survived with different treatment.
Her father Andrew Roussos said he had not been able to look at photographs of his daughter since reading the report.
‘She could have been saved,’ he told the BBC. ‘How do we carry on living with this information?’ The new report by experts commissioned by lawyers representing Saffie’s family found that after the blast, she had lifted her head and tried to push herself up.
She was the first person to be carried out of the foyer on a makeshift stretcher but there was no ambulance outside and one had to be flagged down, according to the BBC.
But it did not have all the necessary equipment and Saffie began pulling at her oxygen mask, asking if she was going to die. The new report found ambulance and hospital staff did not use tourniquets or splints to stop the bleeding.
Mr Roussos said: ‘Medically trained people were with her.
‘She was asking for help’
She was asking for help. She knew what was happening. And she bled to death.
‘Eight-year- olds don’t ask those questions. Doesn’t matter how hurt they are, they want their mum.’
Saffie, from Leyland, Lancashire, was at the concert with her mother Lisa and sister Ashlee Bromwich, now 29.
The inquiry heard the efforts of a poster seller and an offduty nurse to comfort her had been ‘nothing short of heroic’.
It was also told that after the attack dozens of police arrived while ambulance staff stayed back. One police officer was heard on audio recordings saying: ‘We need paramedics like f****** yesterday!’
The ambulance service is expected to respond to the claims later in the inquiry. The hearing continues.