Manchester Arena Inquiry: Paramedic tells of bomb scene

A paramedic first on the scene of the Manchester Arena bombing did not give immediate treatment to casualties because his role was to assess the scene, an inquiry has heard.

Patrick Ennis was one of three paramedics to work at the blast scene.

He explained he did not immediately start treating people because it was his job to prepare for a wider major incident response.

Mr Ennis said his training was to assess who was most in need of help.

Twenty-two people were killed when Salman Abedi detonated a bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at about 22:30 BST on 22 May 2017.

The inquiry heard Mr Ennis arrived at the scene 21 minutes after the bomb had gone off.

He said he spent 90 minutes triaging patients and deciding who was most in need of urgent care.

Mr Ennis explained to the hearing as the first person from the ambulance service on the scene, treating the injured "would occur sometime into the incident", and added "it was not practical at that stage".

Mr Ennis agreed that some people may see it as a "brutal way to approach the situation" but that was the way he had been trained to provide an "overall grip" on a major incident.

The advanced paramedic said although he expected more colleagues to follow him into the foyer, he realised it was going to take some time.

"I think the numbers that we had available at that time just simply didn't allow for any deployment of large number of paramedics into the City Room."

Mr Ennis told the inquiry he was made aware by firearms police officers that they did not think that area was safe.

"I believe that's one of the reasons why it wasn't possible to deploy further paramedics as they arrived into that area," he said.

Mr Ennis said the decision to move critically injured people from the foyer down to the station concourse was why only two more paramedics went into the bomb scene.

The inquiry continues.

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