Maria Winter

The Manchester Bombing: My Story

My name is Maria Winter and on the 22nd of May 2017, I was involved in the Manchester arena attack. I remember how excited I was to be finally seeing my idol, I couldn’t wait. One of my closest friends also wanted to share this experience with me, so we went together. I was the happiest girl in the world! My dad drove us to the arena. The journey was quite long and I remember listening to Ariana’s Dangerous Woman album on repeat to make the journey seem quicker. Once we were dropped off, thousands of people were waiting to get in at the entrance - it was crazy. I already don’t particularly like large crowds, so I felt slightly uncertain (a feeling I didn’t listen to). As we went through security, I remember thinking how minimal this was. I understand they needed to get people in quickly, however their effort needed to be twice as thorough.