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| Manchester Arena bomb response far below standard, inquiry finds | Manchester Arena bomb response far below standard, inquiry finds |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Twenty-two people died in the bombing on 22 May 2017 | |
| The emergency services' performance after the Manchester Arena bombing fell "far below the standard it should have been", an inquiry's chairman has said. | |
| In a 1,000 page report, the Manchester Arena Inquiry found John Atkinson, one of the 22 victims, could have survived had he got the care he should have. | |
| Chairman Sir John Saunders' report listed a catalogue of failings and mistakes by the emergency services. | |
| It noted police, fire and ambulance services failed to work together. | |
| Twenty-two people were killed when suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated a homemade device in the foyer of Manchester Arena as crowds left an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017. | |
| Delivering the second of three reports into what happened on the night, Sir John said everyone involved in the emergency response "no doubt thought they were doing their best, [but] in some cases . . . their best was not good enough". | |
| He said "significant aspects" of the emergency response "went wrong", adding: "This should not have happened." | |
| Sir John said he could not rule out the possibility that both Saffie-Rose Roussos and John Atkinson could have survived | |
| "Some of what went wrong had serious and, in the case of John Atkinson, fatal consequences for those directly affected by the explosion," he said. | |
| The inquiry has heard that Ron Blake, who was waiting in the foyer, used his wife's belt as a tourniquet on Mr Atkinson's leg as he lay bleeding in agony on the floor for up to 50 minutes, during which time he told a police officer: "I'm gonna die." | |
| He was then carried on a makeshift stretcher to a casualty clearing area where he later suffered a cardiac arrest - one hour and 16 minutes after the blast. | |
| Sir John said it was "likely that inadequacies in the emergency response prevented the survival" of the 28-year-old. | |
| 'No effective contribution' | |
| He also said he could not rule out the possibility that the youngest victim of the attack, eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, could have been saved with better treatment. | |
| He said while it was "highly unlikely" she could have lived, on the basis of the evidence he had heard, he could not say that she had "absolutely no chance of survival if the most comprehensive and advanced medical treatment had been initiated immediately after injury". | |
| Sir John added that the inquiry had found the other 20 victims suffered injuries that they could not have survived and he was "sure that inadequacies in the response did not fail to prevent their deaths". | |
| The report also said two of the most senior Greater Manchester Police commanders on the night "made no effective contribution to the emergency response" and highlighted that the force duty officer, who was responsible for initial command, was overwhelmed and overburdened. | |
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