Girl, 14, caught in Manchester bombing called terrified dad while trapped under debris ‘with blood everywhere’… before phone went dead
THE terrified dad of a 14-year-old girl who survived the Manchester terror attack has revealed the harrowing moment she phoned him to say: "Daddy, Daddy, I can't move my legs".
Ella McGovern called her dad Rockey while trapped under debris to say "there’s blood everywhere. There’s been an explosion. I can’t move" before her phone went dead.
Rockey, 39, was in Scotland at the time of Monday's attack and frantically drove to Manchester to find Ella after the horror.
He told : "I had to be up early and went to sleep and woke up after 10.30pm.
"I had about eight missed calls. Ella then rang me saying ‘Daddy, daddy, I can’t move my legs. There’s blood everywhere. There’s been an explosion. I can’t move’ and then her phone went dead.
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"I was just thinking 'My God, what do I do'. I decided to get dressed, get in the car and drive down. I had to.
"I had family ringing me all the way down. I then met Ella and my wife at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.”
Ella had travelled to Manchester Arena to see Ariana Grande with a pal and had been looking forward to the concert for months.
She was buying T-shirts in the foyer when Salman Abedi detonated a nail bomb killing 22 people and injuring more than 100 more.
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The teenager was left with around eight shrapnel wounds on her legs - some of which required stitches.
Ariana Grande flew straight back to the US after the terror attack and hasn’t spoken publicly about what happened.
But Piers Morgan sparked controversy by saying the 23-year-old should have stayed to visit injured fans in hospital.
Rockey, who works in the military, said Ella was helped by an "amazing" woman from Ramsbottom who kept her company and contacted her family and an ambulance.
He added: "She was in the foyer where the main explosion happened and from what she’s mentioned, people directly in front of her took the brunt of the blast.
“I think she was in the region of about 15m from the blast. I think both her ears are perforated.
“She had all the debris on her. She was absolutely covered head to toe in filth and blood. Pain-wise she is quite a tough little cookie but she’s let out quite a few snippets of information about what she’s seen.
“She was on the floor and had to brush other people off her to get out of the foyer area.”
He continued: "It’s widely known that events like this are mainly populated by children. Who would honestly target somebody like that?"
The Haslingden High student was one of three pupils from the school in Rossendale, Lancs, rushed to hospital after being caught up in the attack.
Headteacher Mark Jackson told that 32 pupils were at Monday's concert.
He said: “What some of the children have gone through is absolutely horrendous.
“It will stay with them for ever. It’s a very traumatic experience."
He said Ella and the other two pupils would "hopefully make a full recovery".
Brave off-duty NHS workers who raced to hospital after learning of the attack have likened victims’ harrowing shrapnel injuries to those of soldiers in warzones.
Abedi detonated a nail bomb at the end of the concert in the foyer of the arena as fans were heading home.
It emerged today he had been planning the attack for more than a year, stockpiling nails and screws from DIY stores across Manchester.
Cops who raided Abedi's home in Fallowfield, Manchester were said to have found a "bombmaking workshop" with a chemical stockpile capable of creating several more explosive devices.
Investigators believe Abedi may have travelled to Syria after visiting family in Libya in the days leading up to Monday night's atrocity at Manchester Arena.
It was confirmed today Abedi passed through Turkey — often used as a gateway for ISIS fighters in Syria — and Germany days earlier.
Intelligence services believe Abedi may have been given a crucial component for his device at Dusseldort airport en route to his terror mission.
Eight people are in custody in the UK in connection with the attack, and Abedi's brother and father are being held by authorities in Libya.