‘It Was All Children With Just a Parent With Them’: Witnesses Describe Harrowing Scene at Manchester Arena

By Colin KalmbacherMay 22nd, 2017, 9:42 pm
 

A man who attended the Ariana Grande concert where an alleged terrorist attack left at least 19 dead in Manchester, England spoke with Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson.

Chris Pawley described the scene immediately prior to the explosion. He said:

“As we left, there were so many just young children in there, and teenagers, and in the foyer where the explosion took place as I was walking through I said to my partner–there was–lots of parents stood there and I said, ‘Look at them all waiting for their kids’ because I’d never seen it like that before, like so many people, so obviously they were waiting for their children to come out. So they would have been the people–well they were the people because 20 seconds later as I was walking to the steps, that’s when it went off.”

Asked by Carlson about the general age of the concertgoers, Pawley noted:

“From about eight to 16. That was a majority of the people–children–because the people with them was parents. Where I was sat, 20 seats all around me, it was all children with just a parent with them. Like three and four kids and just one parent accompanying them.”

Karen Ford, who was also at the concert, described the chaos that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the explosion inside the arena to the BBC:

“Everybody was just getting out of their seats and walking toward the stairs when all of a sudden this huge sound which sounded like an explosion went off.

“Everyone just stopped and turned around. And then somebody shouted ‘It’s a bomb, run!” And everyone just started running. Everybody was trying to push people up the stairs. There was a lady in a wheelchair trying to get away. She was absolutely hysterical–people were just pushing past her–so I held them back while she actually got out of the stairwell…

“The problem was a lot of children were there without parents. There was no one to calm them down so everybody was just screaming and crying and pushing. There wasn’t any smoke. There wasn’t a flash. It literally was just the huge sound. Just this huge bang.”

Another witness in attendance that night was Kiera Dawber. Speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Dawber said, “There was people shouting to their kids. There was people shouting…trying to find people. And as we went out onto the council estate to get out of the arena, there was just bodies scattered about everywhere…and people’s belongings on the floor.”

You can watch the videos above, via Fox News, the BBC, and CNN.

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