A homeless man held a dying woman in his arms after the terror attack at Manchester Arena which claimed 22 lives and left 59 others injured.
Chris Parker, 33, who was in the foyer area of the Arena when the bomb went off told the Manchester Evening News how he ran back into the building to help.
He said:
Everyone was piling out, all happy and everything else. As people were coming out of the glass doors I heard a bang and within a split second I saw a white flash, then smoke and then I heard screaming.
It knocked me to the floor and then I got up and instead of running away my gut instinct was to run back and try and help. There were people lying on the floor everywhere.
I saw a little girl. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said ‘where is your mum and daddy?’ She said ‘my dad is at work, my mum is up there’.
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Mr Parker, who has slept rough for about a year, said he also looked after a woman in her 60s who was badly hurt from the bombing with serious leg and head injuries.
He said:
She passed away in my arms. She was in her 60s and said she had been with her family. I haven’t stopped crying. The most shocking part of it is that it was a kids’ concert.
There were nuts and bolts all over the floor. People had holes in their back. It’s the screams I can’t get over and the smell … I don’t like to say it but it smelled like burning flesh.
I don’t think anything has sunk in yet. It’s just shock.
Another homeless man has also given a shocking account of the moment he helped injured children.
Stephen Jones, 35, was asleep near the venue when he heard a huge bang, which he said initially thought was a firework. He recalled, in graphic detail, wiping blood from children’s eyes before noticing their horrific injuries.
I then realised what was happening and saw children coming out, screaming and covered in blood.
We were having to pull nails and bits of glass out of their arms and faces
We haven’t slept most of the night because of what we’ve seen. Just because I’m homeless, it doesn’t mean I haven’t got a heart. There’s a lot of good people with Manchester who help us out and we need to give back too.
Here is a clip of Stephen talking to ITV News:
Police are encouraging anyone with footage from the scene to upload it at ukpoliceimageappeal.co.uk or ukpoliceimageappeal.com.
Other information can be reported to the anti-terrorist hotline on 0800 789 321.
