"Daddy, I can’t move my legs": Teen's harrowing phone call to dad from scene of Manchester bomb attack

A father has told how he received a harrowing phone call from his teenage daughter just moments after she was injured in the Manchester terrorist atrocity.

And just after 14-year-old Ella McGovern phoned her father Rockey from the Manchester Arena to tell him that she was injured and could not move her legs, the phone went dead.

Mr McGovern had to frantically rush from Scotland, where he was at the time, to Manchester to try and find his daughter.

Ella was rushed to hospital but later discharged with leg injuries.

MORE: Man jailed for trying to plant bomb on Tube

MORE: Liam Gallagher to give profits from concert to Manchester victims

He told the Rossendale Free Press about the harrowing moments he realised “something bad” had happened.

“I had to be up early and went to sleep and woke up after 10.30pm and had about eight missed calls.

‘I spoke to my wife and she said something really bad has happened. She was on the phone to Ella and she walked into the foyer to buy some T-shirts and there was a loud bang and her phone went.

‘She said she couldn’t get hold of her. There was loads of ambulances and it was chaos,” he told the Rossendale Free Press.

Ella had gone to the Ariana Grande concert as part of a trip with other pupils from her Haslingden High School.

He added: “Ella then rang me saying ‘Daddy, daddy, I can’t move my legs. There’s blood everywhere. There’s been an explosion. I can’t move’ and then her phone went dead.

“I was just thinking ‘My God, what do I do’.

“I decided to get dressed, get in the car and drive down. I had to. I had family ringing me all the way down. I then met Ella and Louise at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.”

Ella had eight shrapnel insertions in her legs.

She was also close to the blast, Rockey says both her ears are perforated.

Rockey said Ella had been looking forward to the Ariana Grande concert for several months and described the terror attack as ‘absolutely sickening’.

He said: “It’s widely known that events like this are mainly populated by children. Who would honestly target somebody like that?”