Explosion In Manchester

Katie Hopkins sailing close to the wind again today. I would say she has stepped over the mark and broken the law inciting hate.
 
Yeah it does. The entrance to the venue is 'above' the train station, and it was the foyer style entrance where it happened.
The rail station and metrolink stops next to it were both closed off.

My children were there last night. After getting a phone call from my daughter, they had gotten out of the MEN but were lost.
Luckily I track all Apple devices in our Family and managed to guide them to somewhere safe where we managed to get close enough to town to meet them and get them out.
They're both incredibly shaken up, but very very lucky.
At least 81 people weren't so lucky. 22 of them seriously so.

I am glad that your children are safe Marcel.
 
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Found out over the course of the day that my brother's wife and daughter were at the concert.

My niece is shaken, as is her mum, but as a GMP police officer, Nikki made sure her daughter was in safe hands, and then joined her colleagues on site.

I'm so glad they're OK, and so proud of my SIL.

@Marcel ....so glad your family are safe.
 
Found out over the course of the day that my brother's wife and daughter were at the concert.

My niece is shaken, as is her mum, but as a GMP police officer, Nikki made sure her daughter was in safe hands, and then joined her colleagues on site.

I'm so glad they're OK, and so proud of my SIL.

@Marcel ....so glad your family are safe.

Glad they are now safe.
 
The terrorist threat level has been increased from severe to critical, it's highest level
 
the army put on standby to deploy on to the streets in support of the police
 
Saw an interesting comment:


Living in this country and experiencing multiple terror attacks along with other forms of life-threatening disruption, I can whole-heartedly say anyone that thinks it'd work is a pillock.

Let's go back to the 7/7 bus bombings. A tragedy, but one faced with shock that turned into resolve. They bring their actions to these shores and think they'll, what? Spread fear? Hate? You still had people standing at the bus stops days after getting annoyed that the buses were late despite there being an attack prior. It became a focal point for comedians, too. The great British resolve is 4 parts apathy, 2 parts muttering under their breath and 4 parts complaining s*** hadn't been sorted out.

How about the jeep being driven full force into Glasgow Airport? Why the f*** would you think that Glasgow Airport is a prime target for your agenda? Did no one do any research before they decided on a target and think to themselves 'What could possibly go wrong in Scotland?' Did people scream in terror and run to hide beneath mother's skirts? Were there tears and cries for mercy and forgiveness? No. There were people like John Smeaton, whose first act was to RUN UP TO THE TERRORIST AND KICK HIM IN THE b*****ks NEXT TO HIS BURNING JEEP FILLED WITH EXPLOSIVES. What sort of terror are you trying to provoke there? I swear to f*** those lads have had more terror incidents after a night on the town and a dodgy curry than anything extremists could throw at them. f*****g dingbats.

Remember Westminster Abbey? PC Palmer and several others lost their lives during that vengeful stunt (I call it a stunt because it had as much terror as Vanessa Feltz tucking into some pastries) and what happened? You had members of the public aiding those hurt alongside the emergency services, whether it was performing medical aid or the men fishing the woman out of the river, supporting any and all they could, not giving a f*** about the situation around them. Getting the job done. Ronseal.

Now we have the concert in Manchester being the recent target, and while those wounds are fresh, while there is sorrow and anger and shock, I feel firm in my belief that we will not break from this, or anything that's thrown our way. The great British stiff upper lip remains. I get it, I do. Spread fear and hate and associate it with despicable acts so blame is passed onto Ahmed, the Muslim dude who works down the road, minding his own business. Use loss of life and injury and suffering as a repercussion for any slight you feel that's been incurred on your religion, your country, whatever.

But what you don't get is that we don't remember you. We don't care about you. You get swarmed under the national spirit of apathy while people like John Smeaton laughs about you in the pub with his mates telling the story about how he kicked a terrorist in the balls so hard he injured his own leg. You get stories of men and women that see s*** going down and run towards it, sharing that big problem down into bite-sized chunks and solving it minute by minute. You get the survivors, recovering, regaining what you tried to take from them and you get those that didn't survive, forever etched into hearts and minds. There's no room for you there.

Go try the pub, by the way. Those boys will see to your lucky charms all right.
 
Just had a call cancelling my tour of a nuclear power station, presumably being at DEFCON 1 affects all manner of things.
 
Found out today that a girl from our work was killed in the attack, shielding her niece from the blast. Never met her, but still pretty close to home.
 
Very sad to hear that @KitsuneAndy

Saw on twitter this morning about a guy trying to trace his brother who was being hounded by the press, found out his phone number and address, through the course of the day he has been identified as a blogger called Martyn. Upsetting to see people going through this in a public forum
 
Just had a call cancelling my tour of a nuclear power station, presumably being at DEFCON 1 affects all manner of things.

Where I work currently is on full alert, full bag search. Opposite mod site has armed guards. Both sites have expected delays to get in with the increased checks.
 
The bomb was in a backpack, bombers torso found some distance away from the site of the explosion, which explains how some close to the front of the blast survived, the bombers body shielded some apparently.
 
DEFCON 1 - we don't use that here, that's just for the movies !!!!

We also don't use the term ' lockdown' either !![emoji636]
This is the official state of alert ...
<snip>
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
</snip>
 
Not the right time for humor :(
I thought the idea was we carried on with the stiff upper lip, they won't beat us, life goes on, they will not take our freedom, and all the rest ...
Seems we lose and they win in that case.

Yes it a nightmare and yes a real tragedy for those families that lost loved ones,
but you also have to remember, there were / is several thousand people there, that are very thankful that it wasn't them.
 
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Not the right time for humor :(
Far from it - exactly the right time. Humour is a coping mechanism. We carry on, remember the good that was done, the helpers, the unsung heroes. If that means raising a smile then so be it.


Joe O’Brien is a senior sister in the surgical department of Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport, where six of the 59 injured in the Manchester bombing were treated.

"On Monday, I worked from 8am until 6pm as a surgery sister at Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport. I was in bed that night listening to BBC Radio Four when I heard the words ‘Manchester’ and ‘incident’. I immediately thought about Declan, my son, a student who lives in central Manchester. I shot downstairs, spoke to my husband Sean. We rang Declan and established that he was OK, then I rang work and went in.

When I got there at 1.30am there were ambulances outside which had brought in six of the 59 casualties from the arena. They were stabilised in the A&E unit and brought to the surgical department where I work. They all had what we call lower limb injuries with foreign bodies – shrapnel injuries. Metal bolts and nuts, some an inch wide, had gone into them. They had caused real damage and left big holes in people. Shrapnel is like a large bullethole. It just destroys anything it goes through – arteries, bones, nerves, the lot. I’ve been in operating theatres since 1988 and it’s the most upsetting thing I’ve ever seen.

My patient was a lovely, lovely lady who had been in the foyer of the arena when the bomb went off. She had extensive, horrendous injuries caused by the shrapnel, including broken bones and tissue damage. She was in theatre from 3am until about 6.30am. I talked to her just before she went to sleep for the operation and she was just holding my hand and saying ‘Thank you, thank you’. She was in a very bad way but was still smiling and saying thank you. That showed real humanity; I thought that was amazing.

At least four of the six patients needed surgery. Usually only one of our 18 theatres is open overnight for emergencies. But on Monday, surgery was going on simultaneously in three of them, staffed by teams including about 25 other colleagues who like me had just come in to help – surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses, theatre technicians, radiologists to read X-rays and hospital managers – everyone.

Surgeons took the bolts and nuts out of patients and repaired the damage they had caused. One woman with abdominal shrapnel damage who arrived at 4am ended up in theatre for 12 hours.

The atmosphere in the surgical department overnight was very calm and focused but also very emotional. I found it emotional partly because of my lovely lady patient, who didn’t deserve what happened to her; I’ll always remember her smiling. And emotional also because one of the doctors I worked with overnight had actually been at the arena when the bomb exploded, waiting to pick up his daughter from the concert. He didn’t even mention that though. I don’t know how he found the strength to come into work and work all night after getting his daughter home, and after being at the scene of such horror, but he did. I said to him, ‘You’re fantastic.’ But he just said: ‘I’m not fantastic; it’s what we do.’

Strangely, it was only when the police told us to bag up the clothes belonging to the casualties and also the shrapnel – not to clean the bolts and nuts, because they would need them for evidence – that I realised something awful had happened. That brought home the enormity of it.

I’m still feeling very raw and emotional. I finally finished at 9.30 on Tuesday morning and I cried when I got home. On the BBC news a lady was appealing for help to find her daughter and that reminded me of how I felt when I woke up and panicked about my son in Manchester. I cuddled up with my black labrador, called Shadow, on the floor and had a good cry.

A terrible thing happened, and there’s no explanation for it. But I don’t want to think about who did it. I want to focus on the good I saw and was part of on Monday night. We should focus on the love and warmth people displayed after the bomb, and on those who helped those affected, like the homeless guys who gave people directions after the bomb, and not on those who do things like this."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-tells-of-treating-manchester-bombing-victims
 
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That is a very moving account from Joe O'Brien. Does your heart good to read it.
 
If they were going to write it on anything, it should be on aid packages going out to civilians in Syria. Or used to welcome refugees into safe places. That'd show them that they won't win.
 
If they were going to write it on anything, it should be on aid packages going out to civilians in Syria. Or used to welcome refugees into safe places. That'd show them that they won't win.

Syrian refugees fleeing from Syria in small boats and picked up by the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea are given welcome / welfare packs already.

Unfortunately Andy, radical extremists detest British society and everything we stand for. That will not stop them or influence them if they are hell-bent on murderous intent.
 
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