‘Saffie wasn’t making a fuss... she just asked for her mummy’
THE man who cradled dying Manchester concert bomb schoolgirl Saffie Roussos in his arms last night said: “I am totally broken but I would do it all again.”
Forklift truck driver Paul Reid, 43, also helped several other victims after running towards danger just so that he could help those hurt in the suicide bombing.
Paul was only yards away when Salman Abedi detonated the device that sent nuts and bolts shooting at high velocity through the foyer of the Manchester Arena.
He timed his attack to target young fans leaving Monday night’s Ariana Grande concert, and the many mums and dads waiting to collect the excited, happy pop fans.
Fighting back tears, he told the Birmingham Mail: “I was standing by some stairs in the foyer just yards from where the bomb went off.
“When it exploded, there was choking dust and debris everywhere – then people started screaming and running past me. People were shouting, running and screaming. I will never forget the sounds.
“My instinct was to run in the direction of where the bomb was. I wanted to find the terrorist. I was shocked and angry.
“But then I just saw complete carnage and devastation in front of me. There were bodies everywhere.
“You could see that many people couldn’t be helped but there were people who were awake and with serious injuries. I rang 999 and told them we needed as many ambulances as possible, then I started tending to the injured.”
One of those Paul helped was eight-year-old Saffie, from Leyland, Lancashire – the youngest victim of the bombing.
“She was awake and she wasn’t making a fuss. She was just asking for her mummy,” he said.
“I told her ‘You’re going to be OK’. She was cold so I wrapped my coat around her, and then helped her onto a makeshift stretcher.
“She was taken away in an ambulance. When I last saw her, she was awake. I thought she would be OK.
“I was devastated to discover she had died. I haven’t stopped crying since Monday.” Paul says he tended to around eight people, one of them a man in his 40s who had a serious injury to his leg and side.
“I asked him where he was from, and he said Liverpool,” said Paul. “I said ‘Are you a blue or red?’ – did he support Everton or Liverpool?
“He said he was a red. Jokingly, I said to him, ‘That’s OK then, I’ll help you now’.
“Even amongst all the chaos and horror he still had a sense of humour. I wanted to have a joke with him to keep him talking so he would stay awake until paramedics could treat him.
“Once he had received treatment I helped others. There was a man sitting up with a massive leg wound so I helped him use his own belt as a tourniquet. There was an old guy there who grabbed me and said ‘Just get with someone and stop with them.’ I moved on to a woman sitting up with a bad leg injury. I told her ‘You’re going to be all right. Stay with it’.”
Paul, from Darlaston, near Walsall, says he helped people for more than an hour before walking out of the arena in shock, his clothes covered in dust and blood. He had travelled up to Manchester to meet a friend working at the Arena, and returned home a modest hero.
“I am broken at the moment,” he said. “I haven’t stopped crying. I can’t get the images out of my head. But if I was in that position again, I would do it all again in a heartbeat.” Comment: P24 Telling your children: Page 26 Muslims in Wales: Weekend Magazine Pages 10&11