'There were people screaming and running away from the Liverpool parade crash, carrying their children, covering their eyes'
'There were people screaming and running away from the Liverpool parade crash, carrying their children, covering their eyes'
Leah Bower, from Pembrokeshire, said she was 'numb' as she tried to get to the safety of her hotel after being caught in the aftermath of a car ploughing into supporters at the Liverpool parade
Emergency services confirmed 47 people were injured after a car drove into crowds of people on the streets of Liverpool
(Image: PA )
A woman from Pembrokeshire who was caught up in the aftermath of a car driving into supporters during the Liverpool FC parade on Monday evening (May 27) said she saw "people screaming and running away, carrying their children, covering their eyes".
Leah Bower was attending the parade and celebrating with her family just a street away from Water Street, where a car ploughed into supporters, injuring 47 people, including four children. On Tuesday morning, Liverpool City Metro Mayor Steve Rotherham said there are "still four people who are very, very ill in hospital".
A 53-year-old white British man from Merseyside, believed to be the driver of the vehicle, was arrested at the scene. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales on Tuesday morning, Ms Bower, who had travelled to Liverpool from Pembrokeshire from the parade, said she was very nearly on Water Street at the time of the incident and saw hundreds of supporters running away from the scene. Live updates from Liverpool here.
She said: "We were on Brunswick Street, which is the street that runs parallel to Water Street. When we were then reflecting on everything, we realised that we were nearly on Water Street for the parade - it was only because we were behind some trees that we moved further away towards the city centre.
"As we left the parade, turned onto Fenwick Street to cut across to Water Street and that's when you noticed people running away and police overtaking us."
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She said she had "no idea what was going on" at the time, but could see that lots of people were distressed.
Parts of Liverpool city centre are still a crime scene on Tuesday morning
(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo )
Ms Bower said: "We turned the corner and we were amongst the aftermath - people were screaming and running away, carrying their children, covering their eyes, frantically on the phone to try and contact loved ones.
"We could see everyone injured on the floor in varying conditions - there were people with cut knees, but then there were people needing desperate medical attention. The speed that the emergency services got there was phenomenal despite the amount of crowd there."
Although they could see the injured and people were talking about what happened, Ms Bower explained that what happened didn't sink in until much later.
She said: "You saw people running away and police running past us but your mind doesn't go to the absolute worst. We were just thinking 'we'll cut through here to get back to the hotel'. It had been a long day. We were soaked through.
"You're hearing rumours that a car had driven through, but you just thought 'No way - that can't happen. All the roads are closed.' There was just no understanding of how that could have happened.
"We took a second to ring our family to let them know that we were ok, but they had no idea what was happening, so that's when we realised how close we must have been to what happened. We were back at the hotel by the time it was actually coming through on our phones that something had happened."
She added that there was still "celebration" in the city before people understood that something horrific had happened. Ms Bower said: "The more you walked away from Water Street, the less people knew, so there was still so much celebration, still so much of the atmosphere coming off the parade.
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"We were walking through to get back to the hotel almost shell-shocked at what we'd just seen and so numb."
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