A victim of the Manchester Arena suicide bombing would have probably survived, had it not been for ‘inadequacies’ from emergency services.
Police have now apologised for their poor communication during the suicide bombing at the Arianne Grande concert.
Chief Constable for Greater Manchester Police Stephen Watson said the
communication was ‘poor’ and ‘apologised unreservedly’ for their response.
John Atkinson, 28, was six metres away when the explosion went off in the City Room foyer of the venue at the end of an Ariana Grande concert on the evening of May 22, 2017.
A member of the public used his wife’s belt as a tourniquet on the care worker’s leg as he lay bleeding in agony on the City Room floor for up to 50 minutes.
During which time he told a police officer: ‘I’m gonna die.’
Only three paramedics entered the City Room on the night and none were seen to attend or assist Mr Atkinson.
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.
Manchester Arena Inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders delivered a scathing report on the response of the emergency services.
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He said: ‘Significant aspects of the emergency response went wrong. This should not have happened.
‘Some of what went wrong had serious and, in the case of John Atkinson, fatal consequences for those directly affected by the explosion.’
Sir John said it was ‘highly unlikely’ the bombing’s youngest victim, eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos , would have survived her injuries with ‘only a remote possibility she could have survived with different treatment and care.’
Manchester Arena Inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders highlighted 12 key failures of the emergency response to the terror attack.
They were:
– A lack of communication between emergency responders, both through the act of physically co-locating at a single multi-agency RVP (rendezvous point) and via radio.
– A failure to have available either a multi-agency control room talk group or to set one up on the night. This would have allowed control rooms to speak to each other directly.
– Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) force duty officer (FDO) Inspector Dale Sexton did not inform other emergency services of his declaration of Operation Plato, a pre-determined response to a marauding armed terrorist, or keep it under review.
– The FDO and others in GMP failed to consider zoning the scene, following the declaration of Operation Plato, in the early stages of the response.
– No forward command post, for senior officers to liaise, was set up. This was principally the responsibility of GMP, the inquiry found.
– Delays by North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) in getting ambulances and paramedics to the scene.
– Failure to send members of NWAS’s specialist Hazardous Area Response Team into the City Room foyer, the scene of the explosion, to assist with triage and life-saving intervention of casualties.
– Failure to send non-specialist paramedics into the City Room to assist with triage.
– A failure to get stretchers to the City Room to help evacuate the injured.
– Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) did not arrive on scene and make any contribution in removing the injured that its officers could have done.
– Staff at North West Fire Control did not pass on important information to officers in GMFRS.
– No-one in a senior position at GMFRS took a grip of the situation during the critical period of the response.
The initial command of the incident was taken by Greater Manchester Police’s force duty officer, Inspector Dale Sexton, but he ‘quickly became overburdened by the number of tasks he had to undertake’, the report found.
Following erroneous reports of gunshots, Inspector Sexton declared Operation Plato – a pre-arranged plan for a suspected marauding terrorist – but he ‘overlooked’ telling other emergency services.
‘In the first quarter of an hour after the attack and thereafter, there was substantial confusion over the location of an RVP (rendezvous point). Each emergency service chose its own.’
Fire crews took more than two hours to even attend the incident after station manager Andy Berry chose to mobilise resources three miles from the Arena amid fears over safety.
As the post-attack ‘golden hour’ ended, the emergency response had failed to achieve effective evacuation.
Just after midnight there were still 36 casualties waiting to go to hospital, with the last casualty departing just before 3am on May 23.
Sir John said: ‘To those who experienced it, this period of time will have seemed interminable. It must not happen again.’
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He said the evidence was ‘conclusive’ there was no possibility that 20 of the 22 victims could have survived the ‘murderous actions’ of Salman Abedi, referred to sparingly by his initials in the 874-page report.
Sir John said: ‘In the case of John Atkinson, his injuries were survivable. Had he received the care and treatment he should have, it is likely he would have survived. It is likely that inadequacies in the emergency response prevented his survival.’
He said Mr Atkinson would probably have survived if an ‘intervention sufficient to slow substantially or stop bleeding’ had been undertaken up to 45 minutes after the blast.
Sir John said Mr Atkinson would probably have been also prioritised quicker for evacuation if firefighters had arrived when they should have.
Mr Atkinson’s family said after the inquiry ended: ‘During this crucial time, Ronald Blake acted heroically to try to save John.
‘We want to say thank you again to Ronald Blake for all he did that night.
‘However, the medical tourniquets John needed were not made available and the paramedics who could have saved him should have been at the scene much sooner.
“As the report says, responsibility for these failures lies squarely with ETUK, SMG who commissioned ETUK to provide medical services at the Arena and North West Ambulance Service.
‘Finally, had GMFRS arrived at the scene earlier, as they should have done, they could have used their stretchers to get John out of the City Room much sooner and with much less pain.
“Even after John was moved from the City room to the Casualty Clearing Station, further delays meant that he was not prioritised for evacuation to hospital.”
“He was left, dying, without his dignity, on the floor when it should have been obvious to medics that he needed to get straight to hospital.
‘This should simply never have been allowed to happen.
‘The apology from North West Ambulance Service means nothing unless they act rapidly on this report to ensure that no family ever has to go through this horrific experience again.
‘We welcome Sir John’s promise to monitor the implementation of his recommendations. Talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words.
‘We will be watching to see what happens now. John will always be in our thoughts and in our hearts.’
Chief Constable for Greater Manchester Police Stephen Watson has said the
communication between emergency services was ‘poor’ and ‘apologised
unreservedly’ for their response to the Manchester Arena suicide bombing.
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