It was 16-year-old Caitlin Haywood’s very first concert.
She and her best friend had traveled from the town of Mansfield to see US singer Ariana Grande perform at a packed Manchester Arena.
The night should’ve been a joyous rite of passage for Caitlin and thousands of other teenagers who crowded into the venue to see the show.
Instead, the bomb blast that claimed 22 lives and injured scores of others, left her traumatized and contemplating an uncertain future.
“I’m still very shocked,” she told CNN, just hours after she scrambled out of the venue in search of her parents, who had been dining nearby.
“I’m absolutely terrified as well because I never thought that would happen. I’m still just shaking constantly and I felt very unsafe.”
While a somber but defiant Manchester was coming to terms with the horror of an attack that appeared to target mainly young adults and children, Caitlin was trying to process what had happened to her.
“The tickets were very expensive and it was a one-time only experience, but for this to be my first-ever experience with an artist I really liked… I’m really disappointed that someone decided to do this.”
Caitlin says she and her friend were able to leave the arena and were quickly in touch with her mom by phone.
“They actually felt it and heard it. They were just down the road, sitting down, waiting for us to finish and they felt it and they rushed over.”
‘Like a scene from “Titanic”‘
Caitlin’s friend Joseph Harries, 16, says paying extra to get good seats close to the stage where Grande was performing, may have saved their lives as it meant they were far from the explosion.
“She finished her final song, ‘Dangerous Woman,’ and it was spectacular, she did a fantastic job — but once that song had finished and all the lights came back on, we heard this huge explosion at the back of the arena.
“It was like a scene from ‘Titanic.’ People were running back in, screaming. It was horrendous… we had to get out of there as fast as we possibly could. We ended up having to climb up over seats, over railings to try and get out.”
Reeling from shock
He too says he’s still reeling from the shock, not just from his own experiences but at the wider implications of the attack.
“I haven’t got a lot of sleep. I’m exhausted, very shaky still and, honestly, I just I’m more shaken that somebody could do this to a place full of young impressionable girls and boys.
He adds: “I feel like I’ll be a bit more wary when considering the choices of places and things that I end up doing in the future.”
Caitlin’s dad, 46-year-old technology worker Nick Haywood, says he saw crowds of distressed people pouring from the venue as he hunted for his daughter.
“My heart goes out to the parents who aren’t in our situation — who didn’t find their kids,” he says.
Haywood says he helped ferry other children around the police cordons to find their own parents.
“I was just trying to get people reunited, but I feel really bad for them — the parents and children who haven’t found each other yet.”
He says most of the concertgoers were young girls between the ages of 10 and 19.
“And for someone to do something like this at a concert for that age group, that demographic, it just boggles belief. You just can’t understand how they could do that.
“It’s hard for me because I found my children but I saw the relief of parents just hugging the hell out of their kids, the relief that their child is back to them safe and sound. So I can’t imagine what parents must be going through when they haven’t found their child yet.”
While his daughter says she’s unsure if she’d ever go to a concert again, Haywood strikes a more resilient tone.
“They are very rare occurrences. I feel really awful for the families of those killed and those injured… it should have been such a fun occasion,” he says.
“You can’t let this stop you doing what you enjoy doing. It’s not going to stop us going out.”
