A STUDENT teacher from Thatto Heath has described how she came to the aid of three young girls when the Manchester Arena was hit by a suspected terrorist attack last night.

Speaking to the Star, Jess Rigby, who went to the Ariana Grande concert at the arena last night, Monday, May 22, told of how she got spilt up from her friends and helped three girls aged eight, 10 and 12.

The 20-year-old, a former Sutton Academy pupil, said: “It was really scary, you always hear of places like London or New York being targeted by horrible attacks like this, but you never think it’s going to happen near you.

“None of us have slept, we are all traumatised.

“My friends and I were in the higher seating, after the concert finished. We turned around to leave and heard the bang and my friend saw a flash of light.

“I honestly thought it was just one of the balloons that were released at the end of the last song being popped, but the floor shook and I knew something more had happened.

“Everyone turned around and downstairs we could hear screams of pain and then of fear.

“After that everyone ran. I saw some people bleeding and I just went into shock.

“We got outside and I got split up from my friends but I saw three really young girls upset and on their own, one of them was starting to have a panic attack.

“Luckily my mum (who is a residential worker) had taught me the skills to calm someone in a panic attack down.”

The three girls, one of which Jess later learned has severe asthma and is prone to panic attacks, had been separated from their older cousin who took them to the concert.

Jess, who is a student teacher, added: “My main concern was those children and not myself. I only realised what really happened after finding my friends who had been told by their families over the phone.

“I just tried to comfort them, trying hard to reunite them with their cousins and speaking to one of their dads on the phone.

“The dad on the phone, who was coming for them, didn’t know where to get them from and he sounded so stressed so I walked to the nearby Travelodge with them and when he arrived he was so grateful that he hugged me.

“I genuinely thought a speaker had had a fault or something I never even thought it could have been a bomber.

“There was a tiny little girl with blood on her, people covered in blood and everyone was screaming. It was just horrible.”

A 23-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the which killed 22 people, including children, and injured dozens more in the worst terrorist incident to hit Britain since the July 7 atrocities.

The arrest was announced moments after Prime Minister Theresa May denounced the “appalling sickening cowardice” of the lone suicide bomber who detonated a homemade device in the foyer of the Manchester Arena just as thousands of young people were leaving the concert.