Weekly News: Manchester Arena bombing: fire service arrived two hours late, says report

March 27, 2018

Manchester Arena bombing: fire service arrived two hours late, says report

An image taken from the scene of police talking to the injured

According to a report that was published in the news today, the fire service arrived 2 hours late to the scene of the Manchester Bombing Attack that took place last year in May.

The Manchester Bombing Attack took place at the Manchester Arena after Ariana Grande performed to her fans as she was on tour.Many people were injured and around 22 people were killed including young children and teenagers.

It has been said that, "The fire service decided to send in units only after a senior officer overheard a conversation at 00.15 on Tuesday in which he learned armed police had been deployed an hour and a half earlier to check the incident was not a marauding terror attack of the type seen in Paris.

Fire officers later told Kerslake’s reviewers that had they been told this key information by police earlier they would have potentially sent in special rescue teams sooner, knowing the scene was likely to be secure."

Vodafone also comes in for heavy criticism in the review chaired by the former civil servant Lord Kerslake. The phone company operates an emergency phone system that should kick in following a terror attack, allowing other police forces to help call handlers in Greater Manchester. It should also allow the local force to set up a casualty bureau to coordinate information about the missing and injured.

But the National Mutual Aid Telephony system operated by Vodafone experienced a “catastrophic failure”, Kerslake found. This caused significant stress and upset on the night to the families involved, who were “reduced to a frantic search around the hospitals of Greater Manchester to find out more”.

Greater Manchester fire and rescue service (GMFRS) and the north-west fire control both accept they “let down the people of Greater Manchester and other visitors to the city that night”, said Kerslake. The local fire service has three special response teams equipped with “Sked” stretchers intended for the rapid extraction of casualties from a terror attack. But the teams were never deployed and casualties were instead carried out by Arena staff on advertising boards and railings.

Some casualties complained they lay injured for two hours while the fire service waited for orders three miles away: despite GMFRS being the first and only fire and rescue service in England to have trained and equipped all its firefighters and pumps to respond to cardiac arrests for the ambulance service.

Kerslake concludes that had GMFRS assets been deployed immediately then firefighters would have been much better placed to support and, potentially, to accelerate the evacuation of casualties from the foyer.

In contrast, he said the actions of the arena staff, British Transport Police (BTP) and members of the public who stayed to help showed “enormous bravery and compassion”. Police and ambulance personnel were also very rapidly on the scene and there followed “a remarkably fast deployment of armed officers” to secure the area and paramedics to attend to the wounded.

As well as representatives from the emergency services, the council and the Arena, 200 members of the public affected by the attack on 22 May were interviewed by Kerslake’s team, including family and friends of 11 of the 22 people who died.

Many complained about being “hounded” and “bombarded” by the media. Some said photographers took “sneaky” pictures through a window when they were being told their loved ones had died.

As well as the fire crew letting down those who needed help the most at the scene of the attack and those who died, from this story we can see that there had been no respect or sympathy given to those who have been affected and the invasion of privacy of each family who was involved or had loved ones involved in the attack by the media and the homeless man who was praised by many for helping the injured, even though he had been stealing from them.

Another story that shows a lack of support from the government and some members of the public service is the Grenfell Tower incident. Shortly after the fire at the tower, it was said that multiple checks were made throughout the tower before the fire and the people who made those checks did not declare that it was a big risk stay there and left the residents unaware about what could happen. Theresa May also promised the residents who survived the fire that they would receive accommodation immediately and nine months on, there has been no response despite protests going on about this issue.

Overall, I think we should feel like we can rely on the public services and government despite any incident or attack that occurs without having any form of doubt in our minds for they are they ones who are there to help us when we are in need.