First police officer at Manchester Arena bombing: 'I screamed for my colleagues'

Terror: Armed police at Manchester Arena
PA
Mark Chandler1 June 2017

The first police officer on the scene of the Manchester Arena terror attack has described how he "screamed" for his colleagues after the blast.

Mark Renshaw, a PCSO for British Transport Police, spent two hours using makeshift items as stretchers as he and his emergency service colleagues tended to the dead and injured.

Twenty-two people died and scores more were injured when Salman Abedi brought disaster to the city as fans left an Ariana Grande concert last Monday.

Mr Renshaw, 24, told the Manchester Evening News of one girl who tapped him on the vest and asked "Can you help my mummy?", to find she had died in the attack.

Manchester Arena Terror Attack: Victims

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Speaking to the paper, he said: "I heard an extremely loud explosion that literally shook me, everything shook.

"I saw people running and screaming and my initial response was to go the same way they were all running, but something kicked in and I ran through the barriers up the steps and into the foyer.

"It was pretty obvious what had happened.

“I remember screaming down my radio to get my colleagues and first aiders here.

"I was scared, but I couldn't have stood outside the station thinking, 'I'm safe here' when there were people inside who I could have been helping.

“I would have regretted that. I have no regrets."

His comments came as police released further details about terrorist Salman Abedi - including that he had bought most of the key component parts of the suicide bomb in the few days before the attack.

Many of his movements and actions in the four days after his return to the UK from Libya leading up to the May 22 atrocity were also carried out alone but detectives have not ruled out that he was part of "a wider network".

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