It’s almost been one whole year since ISIS terrorist Salman Abedi managed to get into the Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert and detonate an explosives device – a homemade bomb filled with shrapnel, a real DIY job – in a Suicide Bombing, killing himself and a further 22 people, a total that included an eight-year-old girl, and injuring more than 500 people. On the night, the arena was hectic with emergency services.
In the days and weeks following the attack, the political focus was on fighting the very present threat of terrorism and uniting Manchester as a city that stood strong in defiance of adversity and hate.
But now that it’s been a few months since the bombing – almost a year, in fact – the government and the powers that be have had a chance to really assess and evaluate the emergency services’ response on that fateful night last May, and reflect on possible ways to improve that response in case something else like this, God forbid, happens in the future.
One of the most startling revelations from the new report is that, because there was no clear and present fire in the venue following the explosion, the emergency responders didn’t allow any fire crews to enter the building. There was no integration of emergency services or communication amongst the teams, so in the first instance, the Fire Engines were “sent away” from the scene, and in the end, the firefighters didn’t end up getting in there until two whole hours after the blast.
Firefighters were kept ‘out of the loop’
In the new report, there is a claim that the teams of firefighters in Manchester were kept “out of the loop” on the night of the attack, and it was this poor communication that kept them from entering the arena for two full hours, despite the first paramedics managing to get right in there within 11 minutes.
See, the firefighters were ready and raring to go. They were there. But they weren’t allowed in. When they eventually were, one witness noted the “immense frustration” on the firefighters’ faces. There was a lot wrong with the communication between the emergency services and the victims and the survivors of the bombing that night.
Right after the explosion went off near the entrance to the Manchester Arena concert area, as the survivors were desperately trying to flee the scene and get the hell out of there, fearing that the next explosion could be right around the corner or there could be terrorists in their midst, the security officers on the doors told them that it was a false alarm and they didn’t have to worry about it, that it was just a balloon popping. So, fake news has spread to actual people now.
It was the deadliest UK terrorist attack since the 7/7 bombings
The Manchester Arena suicide bombing, with its 23 deaths, was the deadliest terrorist attack in the UK since the 7/7 attacks way back in 2005, more than a decade earlier.
The detonation of the explosives device is reported to have killed some victims who were up to 20 metres away from Abedi when he set it off. Other parts of the emergency services’ response to the attack weren’t up to snuff, aside from their communication amongst each other.
For example, while the survivors fled for their lives from the Manchester Arena after bearing witness to a terrorist attack, a homeless guy named Chris Parker robbed a bunch of them, and none of the police officers on the scene noticed or did anything about it. Justice would eventually be done, since he was sentenced to over four years in jail earlier this year, but that was eight months overdue. Anyway, a fire chief who was on the scene of the suicide bombing, he and his team “stuck to rules” by staying 500 metres away from an emergency situation.
