A SURVIVOR of the Manchester terror attack spoke of his shock as he and friends were preparing to leave the arena at the end of last night’s concert.

Josh Elliott, from County Durham, was speaking from a hotel in Manchester this morning. 

He said: “It happened literally at the end of the show.

“The lights came up and the arena was still about three-quarters.

“We were just starting to leave our seats going along the row when a loud basey bang went off.

“Everyone stopped and then everyone started to scream.

“I told everyone in our group to get on the ground.

“In a couple of minutes we thought it was a balloon, because they had dropped some massive balloons during the concert and we thought it might have been one of them going off.

“But, when we got into the foyer everyone was screaming and I have never been as scared in my life.

“It was the most terrifying thing I have witnessed and I was nowhere near anything that happened, so God knows what it must have been like for them.

“We got out fairly quickly, it only took a couple of minutes, and we got through the doors and everyone dispersed really quickly, but it was absolute madness.

“We didn’t stop and carried on walking. We just wanted to get as far away as we could.”

Mr Elliott said he was then able to ring home to tell family members what had happened and that he was safe.

He and his group were preparing to drive back to the North-East later today.