Arena bomb victim Saffie, 8 ‘may have lived with treatment’

THE youngest victim of the Manchester Arena bombing could have survived if she had received medical treatment before she got to hospital, senior doctors said yesterday.

Saffie-Rose Roussos, eight, was in the foyer where the bomb had gone off for 25 minutes before she was carried out to find an ambulance by two police officers and a member of the public.

An ambulance, which would normally arrive to a life-threatening injury within seven minutes, was driving past half an hour after the blast, and had to be flagged down by the officers.

It was not until 52 minutes after the explosion that Saffie, pictured, arrived at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, by which time she had received no medical interventions and went into cardiac arrest because of a loss of blood.

Gareth Davies, a consultant in pre-hospital care, told the inquiry into the 2017 terror attack that someone who died after arriving in hospital would raise a ‘huge red flag’ because of the possibility that care ‘may not have gone as well as it should have’.

Paul Greaney QC, for the inquiry, asked: ‘Is it your position that the injuries Saffie suffered were amenable to treatment?’

‘Correct,’ Dr Davies said. He listed a number of interventions that could have ‘ameliorated’ the bleeding. The former medical director of the London Air Ambulance, who attended the 7/7 bombings, Soho nail bombing and the Paddington and Potter’s Bar rail crashes, added: ‘An important element was to get Saffie to hospital as quickly as possible.’

The inquiry heard staff from ETUK, the company providing first aid for the arena, came over to Saffie but believed she could not be saved.

There is a ‘difference of opinion’ among experts about whether her injuries could have been treated.

North West Ambulance Service maintains that the half-hour response time was reasonable.

The inquiry continues.