An Australian father says his “Darwin attitude” may have inadvertently saved him and his 12-year-old daughter from the Manchester bomb blast.
David Black had taken his daughter Peta to the Ariana Grande concert on Monday night and rather than exiting the stadium immediately after the show, decided to “hang on” on the off chance the singer returned for an encore.
"We were very lucky. It’s the old Darwin way when we weren’t really in a rush to leave," he told Darwin radio station Mix104.9.
"If it had been another 10 minutes earlier we would have been right near where it was."
"When the concert ended, I said to Peta, 'Let’s hang on, because sometimes they come and do a few more songs'."
Other concert-goers have also said the decision to stay Manchester Stadium, rather than rush into the foyer of venue, may have been the reason the death toll capped at 22.
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The Blacks, who are currently visiting family in the UK, were sitting high in the stadium when the nail bomb detonated among the crowd.
"We heard a bit of a bang go off and because we were ... at the top of the stadium, we saw everybody running in different directions," he said.
The Northern Territory man said he initially believed it was a balloon popping.
"I got Peta to walk over to empty seats and sit down. I told her we should sit down for a minute and actually see what was going on,” he said.
"[We] were heading towards the Victoria Station exit, which is where it went off, so that’s when I could smell smoke and stuff like that and realised that something happened.”
If you'd like to support the victims of the attack and their families, you can donate to the Manchester attack victims fund here.
