Youngest Manchester Arena bomb victim ‘may have survived with better first aid’
Eight-year-old Saffie Roussos was one of 22 people who died when terrorist Salman Abedi detonated a bomb after an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017,
The youngest victim of the Manchester Arena bombing may have survived if she had been given better first aid, according to reports.
Eight-year-old Saffie Roussos was one of 22 people who died when terrorist Salman Abedi, 22, detonated a bomb after an Ariana Grande concert on May 22 2017.
An expert report commissioned by lawyers for the Roussos family found she lived for more than an hour after the blast and that opportunities to help her were missed, the BBC reported.
According to the report, Saffie, from Leyland, Lancashire, asked a paramedic “Am I going to die?” as she was being taken to hospital, and died from losing blood from her legs, but no tourniquets or splints were applied to reduce the bleeding.
Her father, Andrew Roussos, told the BBC: “How do we carry on living with this information? How can we carry on breathing with this information?”
A public inquiry into the bombing is due to resume on Monday following a break over the Christmas period.
The inquiry has heard that Saffie, who went to the concert with her mother, Lisa Roussos, and sister, Ashlee Bromwich, was four metres from the explosion and police and members of the public, including an off-duty nurse, tried to help her.
The hearing, chaired by Sir John Saunders, started in September.
Sir John is due to issue a number of reports later in the year, including on the security arrangements at the Arena, the emergency response to the attack, and the experience of each of those who died, as well as on radicalisation and preventability.
