Skip to main content

The Manchester Arena Inquiry has now concluded. The closure notice from the Inquiry Chairman is available here.

Volume 2: Emergency Response
  1. home
  2. Volume 2: Emergency Response
  3. Part 18: Fatal consequences of the explosion
  4. Saffie-Rose Roussos

Download report

Volume 2 is divided into two sub-volumes: Volume 2-I and Volume 2-II. Volume 2-I is 695 pages long. Volume 2-I begins with a Preface and then continues with Parts 9 to 16. Volume 2-II is 189 pages long. It contains Parts 17 to 21 and the Appendices. A list of the names of the twenty-two who died is at page vii of Volume 2-I and at page iii of Volume 2-II.
A large format version combining Volume 2-I (ia, ib and ic) and Volume 2-II is also available.
Volume 2-I (standard format)
download (pdf: 16.79 MB)
Volume 2-II (standard format)
download (pdf: 1.26 MB)
Volume 2 (large format)
download (pdf: 4.65 MB)

Saffie-Rose Roussos

Saffie‑Rose Roussos was unlawfully killed as a result of the Attack.

When the bomb was detonated, Saffie‑Rose Roussos was approximately five metres from the seat of the explosion.130

Following the detonation, Saffie‑Rose Roussos was lying on the floor of the City Room. She was close to her mother. Saffie‑Rose Roussos briefly pushed herself up off the floor with her arms. She also raised her left arm.131

Saffie‑Rose Roussos remained in the City Room for a period of 26 minutes.132 During that time, she drifted in and out of consciousness.133 To the first member of the public who helped her, Saffie‑Rose Roussos was able to give her name.134 Members of the public, ETUK first aiders, Showsec staff and police officers helped her.135 No tourniquets or leg splints were applied to her injuries.136

At 22:56, police officers and two members of the public placed Saffie‑Rose Roussos onto an advertising hoarding.137 It was clear that she was conscious as this was done. A minute later, she was carried out of the City Room, down the stairs and through the Trinity Way link tunnel.138

Saffie‑Rose Roussos was carried onto Trinity Way at 22:58.139 An NWAS ambulance arrived on Trinity Way at 23:01.140 Five minutes later, Saffie‑Rose Roussos was placed into the ambulance.141 Her level of consciousness fluctuated.142 For the next 11 minutes, Saffie‑Rose Roussos was given emergency care in the back of the ambulance.143 At one stage, she briefly spoke.144

At 23:17, 46 minutes after the detonation, the ambulance left Trinity Way for the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.145 The journey took six minutes.146 From approximately 23:26, Saffie‑Rose Roussos was treated by a trauma team in the hospital’s resuscitation room.147 She went into cardiac arrest at about 23:26. Four cycles of CPR were completed but her heart was asystolic. This meant that there was no electrical activity.148

Saffie‑Rose Roussos was declared dead by the treating clinicians at 23:40 on 22nd May 2017.149

The view of Dr Lumb and Professor Crane, which I accept, was that the death of Saffie‑Rose Roussos was caused by the multiple injuries150 that she sustained in the explosion. Whether those injuries made her death inevitable is a complex issue, to which I will turn in paragraphs 18.191 to 18.234.

Footnotes