Survivors of Manchester Arena bomb terror and those who lost loved ones share stories of joy and tragedy
THE terror bomb attack that ripped through Manchester Arena in May left the lives of thousands in tatters and united the nation in grief.
The deadly suicide nail bomb, detonated by jihadi Salman Abedi at an Ariana Grande concert, killed 22 and left 59 horrifically injured.
And a new episode of Crimes That Shook Britain will tonight air new interviews with those affected as they relive the moments after the attack.
Those interviewed include youngsters who escaped death by “a hair’s breadth” and the relatives of others who were not so lucky.
Here, we look at two of their heart-rending stories.
If she had been facing the other direction, she would have been killed
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Lily Harrison was walking past the box office in the foyer of the Arena with her parents when the blast went off.
Shrapnel ripped into her back and doctors hailed her survival “a miracle” because the blast missed vital organs by millimetres.
Dad Adam recalled: “I saw a flash. I was holding Lily’s hand and trying to see what the bang was.
“I thought it might have been something electrical. Then I looked down.
"Lily was on all fours, and a cardboard sign that she’d made with a heart on it and taken to the concert was covered in rubble.”
Adam picked her up and tried to run outside with wife Lauren, but tripped over a man lying on the floor, falling and knocking his beloved daughter unconscious.
It was only then he and Lauren realised how badly injured she was.
Adam, 32, said: “Lily fell unconscious for about 40 seconds. It was the longest 40 seconds of my life.
“There was a hole in the back of her jacket. I lifted it up and it was as if someone had thrown gloss red paint over her back.
“Her T-shirt was sodden. I pulled it up and there was a perfectly round hole between her shoulder blades.”
The pair — Lauren bleeding from her own injury to her leg — carried Lily as far as the car park.
A policeman radioed for an ambulance but they were all busy with other casualties, so PC Cath Daley drove the family to hospital herself.
It was there they learned how close their girl had been to death.
Consultants said they had “no idea” how the schoolgirl’s heart, lungs and spinal cord had remained undamaged.
They also told Adam and Lauren that had Lily been facing the opposite direction she would have been killed instantly.
Mum Lauren, 25, said: ‘The consultant said she was one of the luckiest children he had ever seen.
“The shrapnel had bruised her lung. They said they don’t know how it didn’t puncture it, but it had missed her heart and spinal cord.
“It was so close to so many organs it was a miracle none was hit.”
Adam added: “If she’d been facing the other way, she would have been hit directly in the middle of her chest. She wouldn’t be with us now.”
Lily, of Heaton Moor in Stockport, Gtr Manchester, spent two weeks in the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and initially could not talk.
Adam said: “For the first four or five days she said nothing — she would only answer yes or no.”
But she soon began to recover, and was delighted when two weeks after the bombing, she had a visit in hospital from her idol, Ariana Grande.
Before the attack, the youngster had filmed herself and her parents in the audience at the concert.
Lauren, who has since had five operations on the deep wound in her leg caused by a flying inch-long bolt, added: “We never thought such a great night could end like it did.
“But for one person doing what the bomber did, there were millions of kind people.
“People and strangers were coming into the hospital with food and clothes. They will never know how much it meant to us.”
I stroked and cuddled Georgina and held her hands... then I was all alone
LESLEY CALLANDER arrived at the Arena to take daughter Georgina home — and instead found herself cradling the dying 18-year-old in her final moments.
The mum recalled: “I was with a friend and as we approached the stairs, I said, ‘Oh my God’. There was blood all over the wall, everywhere. It was all over the floor.
“Then we went in and it was just carnage, total carnage. There were body parts, people covered up with posters.
“As I turned round and looked, there Georgina was on a makeshift stretcher. It was a barrier and she was lying on it and they were doing CPR.
“I was talking to her. I was saying, ‘Please, Georgina, please just try. Just try. It’s Mummy, please just try.’”
While Lesley, 54, was by her daughter’s side, dad Simon was at home listening to it all on the phone.
He said: “All I can hear is Lesley screaming to Georgina, ‘Georgina! Georgina! Come on, love! Come on, love! Georgina, wake up! Wake up!’
“Then she was saying to me, ‘You had better get here quick.’”
Georgina was rushed to hospital, with Lesley at her side. The mum then waited outside a hospital room as medics tried to revive her.
They are only allowed to keep trying for 25 minutes.
Lesley said: “A nurse came out to me and said, ‘We’ve got two minutes left — would you like to come and join us and sit with Georgina because we can’t carry on for any longer than 25 minutes.’
"So, I went in and I stroked her tummy and cuddled her and held her hands and I was just shouting at her, ‘Please, Georgina’ and then the two minutes came and went and they just all stopped.
"Everything just stopped.
“By this time I was hysterical and I cuddled her and held her hands and then I . . . I was all alone with her and I didn’t know what to do.
“As I went out, the curtains, everything went black and I passed out.”
Dad Simon, who was with Georgina’s brother Daniel, only arrived at the hospital after the teenager had died.
And he recalled the horrifying moment he realised she had gone.
He said: “We arrived and Lesley was fainted on a stretcher and so I’m reassuring Lesley at this point.
“I’ve not even asked about Georgina and after a couple of minutes, I looked up to Lesley’s friend and I said, ‘How’s Georgina doing’ . . . and she just looked down and shook her head.
“Then I realised what had gone on and me and Daniel just broke down on the floor and we were wailing.
“Then the nurses came in and asked me if I wanted to go and see her but I didn’t want to see her as she was and we came outside and then I drove.
“I don’t even really remember the journey home and I got home and I must have had about ten cans of lager and I ended up walking the street for the rest of the night.
“Pretty much the first two days I didn’t leave the bedroom. Gradually, you realise what’s happening out there and what people are doing for you.
“The best way I described it is there was a massive, big wave of love bashing at our front door and it just kept coming and coming and coming.”
Georgina, of Chorley, Lancs, became the first of the 22 victims to be named. She had just won a place at university to study paediatrics.
Paying tribute, Lesley continued: “She was amazing. She was beautiful, she was happy, she was always smiling.
“She was always full of conversation, laughter, always hugging me. She was always giving me a kiss and I’m going to miss that so much, I really am.”
Dad Simon went on: “Georgina was everything. She was a girl loving life. Everything was just clicking into place.
“She’d just passed her driving test and got a little car, she was doing fantastic at school and she’d been accepted into university.
“You still don’t think she’s gone sometimes. It doesn’t last long but you have little seconds where you expect to see her car pulling up outside the house.
“But it doesn’t last long and then you realise she has gone. And she’s not coming back.”
- Crimes That Shook Britain, tonight, Crime + Investigation, 10pm.
