Narrow escape, but scars remain for Alex
ALEX Brown understands that she is one of the lucky ones.
But the 21-year-old still carries the emotional and physical scars a year on from that terrible night in Manchester.
Miss Brown and her boyfriend Chris Coulter had been enjoying the Ariana Grande show when a suicide bomber killed 22 concertgoers on May 22 last year.
The couple had been so close to the explosion they were hit by body parts, which they later found out belonged to bomber Salman Abedi.
Miss Brown, from Edinburgh, says her life has changed forever and she has been left traumatised. Speaking for the first time about the bombing, she said: ‘I can still see it in slow motion. I can tell every single detail of what I saw.’
Miss Brown said the impact on her mental health and relationships had been enormous.
She said: ‘I just completely changed, I think. I have lost a lot of friends. People didn’t know what to say or want to say anything. I have been diagnosed with PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder]. My sleep was a big problem. I did not sleep for two weeks... because it all sort of just hit me.’
Miss Brown and Mr Coulter had been leaving the arena, where they were celebrating the end of her third-year exams in accountancy at HeriotWatt University, when the bomb went off.
Miss Brown told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show: ‘I just saw something fly through the air, [it] landed next to Chris.
‘I knew that person had been really close to it because of the way they looked and later on we found out it was actually the bomber himself.’
Miss Brown has received counselling at university but said Mr Coulter has had no support.
NHS Lothian medical director Dr Tracey Gillies urged Miss Brown and Mr Coulter to get in touch. She said: ‘NHS Lothian operates the Rivers Centre in Edinburgh for people who have been affected by psychological trauma.’