He danced... he went to get a drink.Then nothing

BOMB VICTIM MARTYN HETT’S BROTHER RECALLS THE EVENTS AND EMOTIONS OF THE LAST FEW DAYS

WE think we’ve pieced together what happened to Martyn on Monday night.

He went to the gig with some friends. He was dancing, with a big stupid grin on his big stupid face for the whole time I’m sure.

And he went to get a drink. Then nothing.

I know the layout of the Arena well and I knew very very early on that if there was any chance he’d gone to the bar or the toilet there was just absolutely no way he had survived. But we still weren’t sure. What happened next was surreal. Me and my sisters were whisked away from my house in a police car and driven at 90 mph down the A6 with blue lights on.

We were brought to the Etihad stadium, where my parents and Martyn’s close friends had been since early morning. Then we were taken to this beautiful conference room which felt so strange.

All the families with missing people had been there all day. We had to take the underground players’ tunnel to avoid the press outside. It got intense quickly. It was awful but we were united.

The police were completely open with us. When we got to the Etihad they told us they didn’t know how long it would be – it could be eight or 12 hours before we knew anything.

The emotion was too much and we decided to wait at home. We got our things together. Just as we got to the car park our family liaison officer called us back. That’s when we knew. Martyn had ID on him. In a way we were lucky, others had to wait much longer to find out.

We don’t know what happens next. We anticipate formal identification of Martyn’s body at some point.

The emergency services at every stage of this have been astonishing. The police have been incredible, the comfort we’ve had from them.

We’ve never been in the dark about any of it. I honestly don’t think we could have got through it as a family without them. They’ve been completely transparent with us when they were carrying out an unimaginable task.

I’ve also been thinking about those in the Arena right this second recovering evidence, debris and bodies.

As a family – and I’m sure the other families would agree – as hard as it’s been we’ve understood fully the enormity of what the city is trying to recover from.

Every facet of support that we’ve needed has been met and exceeded.

Everyone has been so supportive – right down to the little things. Massive piles of pizza turned up, every possible kind of supply for the families. I was never without a cup of coffee in my hand, just constantly supported in every little way right down to the shops not taking our money when we needed to nip out for bits and pieces.

The spirit of generosity has been unreal.