MANCHESTER BOMB FAMILY ON LOSS OF LITTLE GIRL
My wife looked up at me from her hospital bed and said ‘Saffie’s gone, isn’t she?’ I just nodded...
As Lisa Roussos woke from a coma for the first time since the Manchester bombing, her husband Andrew braced himself. He would have to look into Lisa’s eyes and tell her their eight-year-old daughter Saffie was dead.
Lisa was leaving the Ariana Grande concert with her daughters Saffie and Ashlee, 26, when they were hit by the full force of the blast.
Lisa and Ashlee were injured by flying shrapnel, but beautiful Saffie did not survive. She was the youngest of the 22 people killed in the terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena on May 22.
While the world grieved for the victims, Lisa, 48, was in the induced coma until more than a week later.
Andrew, 43, had, no doubt, been dreading telling her the terrible news. But in the end, it sadly proved unnecessary. He said: “Lisa looked up at me and said, ‘Saffie’s gone, isn’t she?’ I just nodded. She said, ‘I knew’. She remembers everything about that night.”
It should have been a perfect evening. Saffie, who her dad described as “a stunning young lady”, had been counting the days until the concert after she was given tickets as a Christmas present.
Saffie didn’t just idolise Ariana Grande, she aspired to follow in her footsteps and taught herself to dance and do gymnastics, including daring backflips. The chance to see her hero live on stage should have been the best night of her young life.
The family broke their silence yesterday to celebrate Saffie’s life on what would have been her ninth birthday. Speaking to the BBC, Andrew said: “Saffie was everything you could wish for in a little girl. She was a joker. She was a huge character. She lived life to the full. You couldn’t be around Saffie without having fun.
She was counting the days, the seconds, to that concert. It was Ariana Grande until nine or 10 o’clock at night. She would sing and dance to every single song.”
Ashlee spent the concert watching her little sister enjoy the show. She said: “Saffie was Ariana Grande obsessed. To see how happy she was, it was obvious I had to go with her. She was elated all night, grinning. She said, ‘Come on Ashlee, you promised me you were going to get up and dance’. So we had a little dance.”
At the end of the concert, the family waited as Ariana thanked her fans for their support, then headed towards the exit to meet Andrew, who was waiting outside with Saffie’s brother Xander, 11.
As they reached the foyer, terrorist Salman Abedi detonated his homemade bomb filled with bolts and shrapnel.
Ashlee said: “I remember I was thrown to the ground, then I rolled over and crawled because I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t see my mum or Saffie. I just saw crowds of people.”
Outside the arena, Andrew did not hear the blast, but realised something was wrong when he saw crowds of screaming children running away.
He said: “All hell broke loose. As I came round the corner, I saw Ashlee outside, she was injured. There were a couple of doctors with her. They told me Ashlee was stable, so I asked about Lisa and Saffie. Ashlee was confused, so she couldn’t really give me more information. You’re panicking. You don’t know what’s going on. You want to get in there, to look for your family and make sure they are safe, but the police are pushing you away to safety.” Fearing a second attack, the police expanded the cordon around the arena, forcing the anxious families back and advising them to check with local hospitals for news of their loved ones. It was late the following morning when Andrew discovered Lisa had been taken to the Salford Royal and had already had surgery. But there was still no news of Saffie. He said: “As the hours went on, I thought the worst. I was holding on to just a little bit of hope that she was in one of the hotels with the other survivors or in a hospital that they hadn’t checked.”
Then he was told the most terrible news possible, that Saffie had been killed.
He said: “When the detective came and told me, I couldn’t take it in. I just sat there looking at him. It’s just your worst nightmare. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to think.”
Well-wishers left hundreds of floral tributes outside Andrew’s fish and chip shop in Leyland, Lancashire, and quickly raised more than £10,000 to support the family through their darkest days.
Even more moving was the carpet of flowers that filled St Anne’s Square in Manchester.
Andrew said: “The police took us into St Anne’s Square while Lisa was still asleep, just to show us the tributes. I was a bit nervous to go in, but the love I felt when I did was incredible.
“Lisa woke up a couple of days before they cleared the square and we went as a family, with Lisa on a stretcher in an ambulance. We parked right outside.”
Exact details of Lisa’s condition have not been released. Andrew said: “She’s got that many injuries around her body, she’s like a soldier. “I was worried to death she might just give up, but she is doing everything she can. She is surprising even the doctors, nurses and surgeons.
“We are all there for each other. We do a little bit of laughing and joking, we do a little bit of crying and cuddling, and that’s how we get through each day.”
Yesterday was always going to be particularly painful as the family spent the day remembering their “beautiful girl” and
You panic, you want to look for your family, make sure they’re safe ANDREW ROUSSOS ON AFTERMATH OF THE BOMB
ensuring others would do the same. Andrew’s final gift to Saffie was to bravely share her story, to make her famous, just like she always wanted.
Andrew said: “Saffie loved the limelight. She was a very cheeky, beautiful, stunning, young girl, that was so forward for her years.
“Her heart was huge, she was so soft and gentle but she was so strong in chasing what she wanted and she wanted to be famous.
“Her idol was Ariana Grande and she aspired to be her. If she had her life to live, that’s what she would aim for. She would have loved making front-page headlines and being talked about on TV.” Andrew also
Saffie lived life to the full. You could only have fun around her ANDREW ROUSSOS ON HIS DAUGHTER SAFFIE
met Ariana herself before the One Love charity concert in Manchester, two weeks after the attack, which included Liam Gallagher, Coldplay, Katy Perry, Robbie Williams, and Take That.
Andrew said: “As a father, I wanted to tell her what she meant to Saffie and not to blame herself.
“All she could say to me was, ‘I’m sorry’. I said you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, you’ve done nothing wrong. You made Saffie and all the children round the world so happy.
“She thanked me. She appreciated me telling her that.
“The bomb could have happened halfway through the concert or at the start, but Saffie got to see her right to the end. I’m grateful that she got to see all of it, because she had been so looking forward to it, and I wanted Ariana to know that.”