Manchester Arena Inquiry: Bomb was 'worst nightmare'

A fire service control boss feared "the worst nightmare" had happened after being told a "dirty bomb" had detonated at Manchester Arena, an inquiry heard.

North West Fire Control's Janine Carden said she was at home when she was told about the bomb and rushed to the control room.

"I just knew I had to get there," she told the public inquiry.

She said she was unaware paramedics were treating casualties, while the fire service was "stalled".

The inquiry was told the former operations manager was on-call and asleep when a colleague rang her to tell her about the attack on 22 May 2017, which killed 22 people and injured hundreds more.

North West Fire Control (NWFC) received a report of a "dirty bomb" from a member of the public calling from the car park at the arena.

Ms Carden arrived at their control room in Warrington 40 minutes after the explosion.

"I was just thinking 'the worst nightmare's happened'," she told the public inquiry into the atrocity.

The inquiry has previously heard two team leaders had decided not to mobilise firefighters straight to the arena but chose to get advice from senior fire officer Andy Berry, who sent crews to a muster point at Philips Park fire station in east Manchester instead.

It was more than two hours after the detonation before fire crews were finally mobilised to the arena.

Ms Carden told the inquiry she agreed with her team leaders' decision, saying they had been trained to contact a senior fire officer if there was a suspected marauding terrorist firearms attack, rather than mobilise to an incident.

Although the fire service incident log included details of police and ambulances being at the scene, Ms Carden said she was unaware paramedics had been sent to the arena and were treating casualties.

She said because of the risk of other attacks, she assumed ambulances were being held back "in a holding area waiting until they knew it was safe".

She told the inquiry if she had known other emergency services were responding at the scene, she would have told fire officers.

Ms Carden said the control room was so busy dealing with the incident she did not appreciate how long fire crews had been waiting at Philips Park fire station.

"I wish I'd paid more attention to the time because [it] went so quick, I didn't realise they were stalled," she said.

Ms Carden, who has since left NWFC, admitted to a colleague in an email there was a problem with call operators sharing information on the night of the attack.

She wrote: "We shared everything with police and ambulance but not with our officers."

The inquiry continues.

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