I’ll walk again soon vows teenage terror survivor

Lucy endured 50 hours of surgery A TEENAGER yesterday told of her miracle survival after the Manchester bomb went off just yards away from her.

Lucy Jarvis, 18, was just a few yards from suicide bomber Salman Abedi when he detonated his device at the Manchester Arena seven months ago.

Thirty pieces of shrapnel tore through her body and medics battled for 14 hours to save her. Since then she has had eight further operations lasting 50 hours. The teenager, from Wigan, spent two months in Salford Royal Infirmary after the blast.

She hopes to walk unaided in a few months and has vowed the attack will not change her life. Lucy says she wants go travelling to Australia and the US.

She had gone to the Ariana Grande concert with her best friend Amelia Tomlinson and the pair were holding hands as they went into the foyer when the bomb exploded. She recalled: “I was blown backwards Lucy says blast will not change her life on to the floor. The first thing I felt was a lot of heat. I didn’t hear a bang – it was a highpitched noise, like a microphone squealing.” “I thought we’d been set on fire. I had no idea it was a bomb. Any closer and I would have been killed. My vision kept going in and out. There was fire, ash and debris falling around us.” A stranger used her phone to call her parents. David Jarvis, 55, said: “It was complete and utter panic. Just terror. Complete fear. It’s your worst nightmare. “We lived in fear for 10 days. We didn’t know if she was going to make it. I remember saying to the doctors, ‘Whatever you have to do, just keep her alive’. “One said that in all his years, he’s never met anyone as brave as Lucy. He said, ‘I’ve seen grown men scream and cry for their mothers and all Lucy did was say thank you every single step of the way.’”