Just THREE medics were let in to treat Manchester bomb victims
56 ambulances sent to scene ... but police feared more devices
JUST three paramedics were sent inside the Manchester Arena foyer to treat the most seriously injured victims of Salman Abedi’s suicide bombing, it emerged last night.
Despite 56 ambulances being dispatched to the scene on May 22 following a concert by pop star Ariana Grande, some of those badly hurt had to wait up to an hour for medical attention – as safety procedures meant police had to make sure there were no more bombs.
Instead, survivors – who said they saw people die – had to step in and improvise bandages and tourniquets from clothing, carry bleeding casual-
‘Too much for just three paramedics’
ties on makeshift stretchers to paramedics who were waiting outside a cordon, or sit with them until help arrived.
Scots schoolgirl Eilidh MacLeod, 14, was among those killed in the terror attack. She had attended the gig with her friend, 15-year-old Laura MacIntyre, who survived but suffered ‘significant hand and leg injuries’.
The girls, from the Hebridean island of Barra, were reported missing after they failed to get in touch with family.
Eilidh was later confirmed dead while Laura was found among the victims being treated in hospital.
Ex-soldier Phil Dick, who was in the foyer to pick up his daughter and granddaughter when the bomb exploded, said: ‘There was too much for just three paramedics to deal with. The longer it went on the more silent it became. It was really eerie, and people who I had seen earlier, who were severely injured, were now dead.’
Across Manchester and beyond, thousands of health workers and volunteers won praise as they worked all night to save young fans and their parents suffering blast and shrapnel wounds.
But the decision to send so few paramedics into the actual arena left the emergency services facing questions last night – especially with the UK terror threat still at ‘severe’, meaning further attacks are considered highly likely.
Mr Dick and his wife Kim were caught up in the aftermath of the blast that killed 22 people after travelling from their home in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
Mr Dick, who runs an IT company, told the BBC’s Inside Out programme he repeatedly shouted at the emergency services, as they stood outside ‘We need paramedics now!’ to which police officers replied: ‘We’re just making sure there are no more bombs.’
He added: ‘It was down to people like us to help the wounded. The event security staff were running round throwing people first aid kits but it wasn’t sufficient. We were making makeshift compression dressings for a severely wounded girl. She was losing a lot of blood. She did pull through.’
Also frantically trying to help was forklift truck driver Paul Reid, 43, from the West Midlands. He cradled the youngest victim of the outrage, eight-year-old Saffie Roussos, as she lay dying.
‘It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,’ he said yesterday. ‘About 20 minutes after the bomb went off, one paramedic came in, then half an hour later two more arrived – that was it.
‘We had to rip up T-shirts and use tables as stretchers to carry people to where the ambulances were waiting. There should have been more paramedics.’
North West Ambulance Service confirmed only three paramedics were allowed into the foyer. A spokesman said. ‘Their job was to triage the injured and work with police to move people to where they could be treated safely.’
The trust said it took an hour for all ‘critical’ patients to be treated and four hours for those who needed hospital treatment to be transferred.