Fan, anonymous, 14
Ariana had just finished her last song, the lights came on and we stood up. People were waiting to go up the stairs to leave.
About two minutes later, we heard and felt a massive bang that shook the building at the top of the stairs where we were heading. It went quiet for a second.
There were girls at the top of the queue that were screaming and one girl was jumping over seats to get away. People started to panic, screaming and crying.
We turned to go down the stairs away from the bang, my friend grabbed my hand and everyone was pushing so we were getting squashed against the seats.
We weren’t far from the bottom and then we went towards an exit on the ground floor, following others. People were screaming.
My friend managed to speak to her mother briefly on the phone who said that something had happened before she got cut off.
We were underground in a narrow corridor, I felt claustrophobic and scared but no one was crying.
We walked up stairs, some people were laughing and some crying as we didn’t know what had happened.
We finally got to some double doors opened by a steward, I looked to my right and saw an older man, he was holding his face and the left side was covered in blood. He was stood with a little boy.
I felt scared. We walked a few yards in a covered area, walking towards the outside and a man said: “You’ve got to run, you need to run”.
I was holding my friend’s hand. Everyone was running, we went outside and saw people stood around.
There were a lot of policemen, I was crying at this point as I realised that something bad had happened.
A guy with some girls turned round to us and said: “I don’t know you but you are going to be all right?”
I didn’t know where to go as we didn’t know the area or where our mums were.
We headed towards a snooker hall as we knew that if we got to somewhere we could identify that we would be OK as we could tell our mums this.
People everywhere were crying and all I could hear were sirens.
I needed to speak to my mum and finally got through on the phone. I could hear that mum’s voice was shaky and she sounded worried.
We struggled to describe where we were and mum said: “Put your hands up and wave so we can see you.”
We then just walked away towards the car. I saw people with blood splattered on their clothes and faces, which was awful.
Mother, anonymous, 43
My friend and I were waiting for our girls aged 14 and 15. We stood on the opposite side of the road to the main entrance just across from Victoria station.
I got a text from my daughter’s friend to ask for a bottle of water. I scrabbled for change and was saying what a rip-off that I was charged £2 for water that I knew cost about 30p.
At about 10.30pm we heard a loud bang that sounded like a dull explosion, it came from the direction of the station just metres from us.
People came running and shouting from the station saying, “Run, it’s a bomb.” We looked at each other in shock and said, “Oh my God, the girls, where are they?”
As we started to run towards the station, a taxi driver told us to run away.
Both my friend and I tried to ring the girls without success, my hands were shaking so much I could barely work my phone.
We were trying to spot them in a sea of people swarming down the main stairs, it was frantic and impossible to see anyone.
At this point we saw a man with a leg injury; blood covering his lower left leg and his jeans appeared torn.
A T-shirt man we had shared a joke previously was assisting him with what looked like a tourniquet made from a belt.
We were in a panic. My friend managed to speak to her daughter briefly and I asked whether my daughter was with her but she didn’t answer. It was difficult to hear from the noise.
I scanned around to see if we could get to a vantage point so that we might see them as we didn’t know which exit they had used.
We were scared, panicked and frantic not knowing where to go. We worried that there might be another explosion and we were not sure whether the girls were injured or if they were safe.
My friend managed to speak to her daughter again eventually. They were told by the police to go towards the Park Inn.
But we were unsure where this was so began running around the outside of the arena in the road to get there as soon as we could.
There were so many people looking bewildered, it was chaos. I was praying there would not be another explosion before we got to the girls.
I noticed children with blood on their faces and saw people receiving treatment from paramedics in the road.
People could be heard talking about a bomb or gunshots, it looked to me like shrapnel wounds.
There were armed police. People were crying and running.
My daughter managed to get through to me about 10 minutes after the explosion and was sobbing down the phone.
The girls were in shock and crying but we made it back to the car.
We just wanted to get away as quickly as possible but I felt guilty not to be helping those injured. Our thought was just to get out and as far away as possible.
A bomb had been the furthest thing from my mind, I was more worried about us being tired the next day, or having something stolen.
I somehow feel guilty that we are OK , and other people aren’t.
