Horrors of Manchester attack
Our patients were too shellshocked to scream
had bought Ariana Grande tickets as a Christmas present for Ilana. Katherine said: “When we left the concert we were just euphoric that we had walked away with just cuts and bruises and bits of the bomber on us and nothing else.
Boom
“We just can’t believe that we were so close and weren’t killed – a few seconds difference and we’d have been in the foyer where we were heading. We came out of the door from the arena and there was just this boom, a massive explosion and this flash of light.
“There was this immense heat, like a backdraft of fire across your face and legs. It was so surreal, I can’t believe we walked away. It just happened so quick. Ilana was temporarily deaf. She was hysterical and she looked up at t me and said, ‘ It’s a bomb, i sn’tn’t it mummy? It’s a bomb?’?’ “I feel guilt because eI I work for the NHS andd I didn’t stop to help but my priority was to get my daughter out of that situation as soon as I could. “I didn’t know if there was going to be ea a second blast. I put my arms around her and turnedrned her around so she couldn’t see anything and guided her out.” Katherine asked a steward to direct them to an exit as there had been an explosion but he said it had been balloons bursting. She said: “I knew I had to get her out but you don’t know if you’re u n w i t t i n g l y walking towards another bomb.” Katherine flagged down a taxi which took her home where she showered and comforted Ilana. She said: “Ilana said she saw was a man falling over, she said, ‘He’s fainted hasn’t he?’ I said, ‘Yes’. As soon as she was out of Manchester she calmed down. Because we gotg away so quickly, I hadn’t realised the enormity of it. I feel so lucky we survived, another co couple of steps and wew would have been killed.” Since Monday, mum and daughter haveh been in shock althougha Katherine, engageden to a singer wit with the band High Spy, has b been back to work. She said: “In the waiting room it was on the TV. It was so hard. I break down in tears. The next minute I can talk about it. “I couldn’t deal with the minute’s silence. I had to go for a walk because I knew I would have just been crying my eyes out. “If this piece of plastic from my boot helps the police then it’s helping me deal with it. I’ve felt guilt. “Looking back I think, ‘Should I have stayed to help the injured?’ But I was looking after my daughter and I didn’t want her to see things that would’ve stayed with her forever.” CHARLOTTE Brownhill, 39, is a mum-of-three and matron at Stepping Hill A&E in Stockport where six patients were treated for major trauma injuries on Monday. She talks of the eerie silence as medics battled to save lives – with patients too shell-shocked to scream out in agony. I WAS doing the ironing Unusually, there was no screaming and on Monday night when I shouting out in pain. The patients that got a text from a friend came in were silent and shell-shocked. In whose husband is a their CT scans you could clearly see the police officer. outlines of nuts and bolts scattered
She told me inside their bodies. something had That is something I will never forget. happened in Manchester As an A&E nurse you see a lot of blood, a but she didn’t know what. lot of wounds. But seeing those nuts and
My stomach lurched. My eldest son bolts inside a patient’s body because was out and I didn’t know if he’d gone somebody had intentionally set off a into Manchester. Overwhelmed with bomb to cause major devastation, that panic, I phoned him and the relief was was something I’d never seen. We knew immense when he answered straight some of the patients we were treating away and told me he was OK. would likely have been at the concert
Then my focus turned to work. My shift with a child and we did all we could to had started at 7.45am and hadn’t find out where those children were. finished until 6.30pm but straight away I knew I had to get back to the hospital.
By the time I got a second text from my friend five minutes later, saying it was something awful, I’d already got my uniform on and was heading out.
When I arrived at work, it was nearly 11pm, but still nobody knew what had happened. Then the call from the ambulance service came and we were told to prepare for mass casualties.
The hospital’s major incident protocol was activated and from that moment it was all go. First, we had to deal with the fact the waiting room was already packed with our regular patients and the A&E department full.
Announcements were made appealing for anybody who didn’t need urgent treatment to go home, while we found beds in other parts of the hospital where our acute patients could be treated.
Devastation
Then, at about midnight, the first major trauma casualty arrived. And that was when the sheer devastation of what we were dealing with hit home.
The patient was a woman and she had received a massive blast of shrapnel to her lower body. I had never seen anything like it. It was a spine-chilling indication to us that what had happened at Manchester Arena was horrific.
The lady was incredibly frightened and was too much in shock to speak but I tried my best to reassure her, to tell her she was in safe hands.
Within half an hour we had received another three patients almost simultaneously. They had all received penetrating blasttype injuries that were so severe it was amazing that they’d survived to that point.
We were seeing devastating scenes and when you can actually smell the blood in the air, that makes it very real.
But what really struck me was the eerie sense of quiet.
Proud
Tragically, it became clear that some of our patients had lost children. But it wasn’t the right time to tell them such devastating news because from us they were being taken into theatre for life-saving surgery.
I couldn’t be more proud of everybody who worked that night. There was an absolute sense of calm and focus amongst the team. There was no panic, no chaos. Everybody had clear roles and responsibilities and they delivered. I think we were all working on adrenalin.
We would look in each other’s eyes and see the horror we were each feeling, but nothing was said. There was complete professionalism.
It was only when we finally got stood down at 6.10am that we could hug each other and support each other after the appalling things we had seen.
When I got home, the house was quiet and I sat down with a cup of tea and I cried. I cried a lot.
I cried because the reality of the situation that I’d been dealing with was only just sinking in. I cried for the lives that had been irreparably damaged and I cried because of what this meant for the future of our society.
I close my eyes and I can’t get the bad things we saw out of my head.
My only way of coping is to think of the goodness we saw that night and in the days since, from everybody who rushed to help.
The hospital has seen amazing generosity from members of the public. Local nurseries have offered to look after patients’ children, beauty salons have offered nail treatments and facials, and we’ve received massive amounts of food. It is these incredible acts of kindness that we should be focusing on.