Grande fans tremble as they recall Manchester attack
MANCHESTER (AP) — Rihanna Hardy had been excited about seeing Ariana Grande ever since she got her concert ticket as a Christmas gift.
So when the day came, the 11-year-old left school a couple of hours early to make sure to get to Manchester Arena on time.
Her parents, Ryan and Shauna, took the afternoon off work, and the family drove the 140 miles from Newcastle to Manchester.
But what was supposed to be a special night for Rihanna and thousands of other young concertgoers turned into a tragedy when a suicide bomb blasted off just outside the cavernous hall.
”Poor Rihanna. She just kept asking every five or 10 seconds, ‘Are we going to die?’ Those were her exact words,” her father said.
The family took their seats, close to the stage, just before the first of two supporting acts warmed up the crowd.
Then, as the concert ended, the horror began. Thousands of Ariana’s fans — many of them youngsters accompanied by their parents — fell silent for a few seconds, in shock. Then the screaming started.
”I thought we were going to die. It was just horrendous,” said Rihanna’s mother.
Police were called in at 10:33 p.m. As they arrived, a smell hung in the air — a bit like smoke, a bit like burning, nothing the Hardys had ever smelled before.
”I can’t describe it. It was a really awful smell,” Shauna Hardy said. “And there was just alarms going off, police everywhere. Sirens everywhere. People running, screaming. It was just crazy. Absolutely crazy.”
Police and paramedics rushed to aid the wounded, wrapping some in foil blankets to keep them warm and ward off shock.
Charlotte Fairclough, 14, was part of the rush to flee.
When Charlotte got out, she immediately called her mom Stacy.
The full scale of the attack did not hit home until they turned on the news at a hotel. The Hardy family escaped unscathed, but the shock of the night endured even as they tried to sleep it off. When a door slammed loudly at half past five in the morning, Rihanna got frightened.