Manchester attack: Mother of Georgina Callander tells how she tried to comfort daughter in her final moments
Lesley Callander found her teenager lying on a stretcher fatally injured when she went to collect her from the concert she had been 'so, so excited' to see
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The mother of one of the youngest victims of the Manchester bombing has described the devastating moment she found her dying daughter being treated by paramedics.
Georgina Callander, 18, was one of 22 people slaughtered in Monday night’s terrorist atrocity at the Manchester Arena following an Ariana Grande concert. She was the first victim to be publicly named.
Her mother Lesley told ITV news how she tried to comfort the youngster after she found her lying on a stretcher in the minutes after the home-made bomb tore through concert-goers excitedly leaving the arena.
“They were working, doing resuscitation and getting her down the stairs," she said.
“I was just screaming and shouting at her. I was rubbing her hands, I was rubbing her tummy, I was rubbing her face."
She added: “It was just a flicker of hope that she’d move her hand or move her leg or try and open her eyes a little, just to acknowledge that I was there, just to let me know that she was very, very poorly but she knew that I was there.”
The teenager, a health and social care student from Lancashire, was a huge fan of Ariana Grande and had tweeted to the star that she was excited to be seeing her again at the concert just a day before the devastating attack.
She had previously met Grande and shared a photograph of the two of them together in the tweet.
Her mother said: “She was so, so excited. She kept telling me her tummy was turning over.”
Ms Callander described the last time she saw her daughter alive, as she waved her and a friend off to Manchester before mass murderer Salman Abedi robbed Georgina of her young life.
She said: "I took some photos of them together before they went in and gave them a big hug and said just have an amazing time. Off they went, they were just laughing and giggling together."
Breaking down in tears, Georgina’s father Simon said he felt he had let his daughter down by not being with her at the end.
“I should have been there to hold her hand, when she was lying there,” he said. “I should have been there to hold her hand.”
His wife comforted him, as she said: “I was, my love, I was.”
The family released balloons in St Ann's Square in Manchester in memory of Georgina.
The 22 people killed by suicide-bomber Abedi included seven children.
Eleven people who have been arrested in connection with the atrocity remain in police custody. Two others arrested on suspicion of terrorist-related offences have since been released without charge.
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