It was the first time 14 year old Freya Lewis was allowed go to a concert on her own. She went with her best friend Nell and they felt very grown up. It was the 22 May 2017. Freya's dad drove the girls to the Manchester Arena and then waited in the city for the call to come pick them up after the gig.

"Seeing Ariana – we'd become such amazing, really big fans of hers, so it was really surreal to see her. And Nell was the happiest I've ever seen her. And we were singing and dancing away, we didn't sit down the whole time. We cried a bit. But it was just perfect."

Freya had agreed with her dad that she and Nell would leave the concert during the last song so that they could beat the crowds. So, during the last song, Nell took Freya's hand and they left the auditorium. Freya remembers seeing a young man dressed in black standing in the centre of the foyer.

"He was motionless and it was a bit strange to me, but I didn't think anything of it because Nell came back and started talking to me so I just kind of dismissed him from my thoughts."

Just as Freya sent a text to her dad to let him know they were on their way out, "everything went wrong".

"There was a loud bang and I just felt – 'cause Nell had her arm linked in mine and I felt her slip out of me and then, yep, that's when the horrifying nightmare started."

As Freya tried to get her feet she realised that she was covered in blood. Asked by Ryan if what she had experienced was like what we see in movies, Freya said it definitely didn't feel real:

"It definitely felt like a dream, a nightmare. Everything was definitely slow motion and I could barely see or hear anything. It was just all very surreal."

The blast left Freya with two broken legs, a broken arm, burns, facial injuries, an eye injury, an ear injury – "basically everything you could think of".

One of the first things Freya asked her dad when he got to her, was "where's Nell?" He  didn't know and Freya was taken to hospital in a critical condition. When she woke up in her hospital bed, she asked her dad again where Nell was. And this time, he did know.

"I could tell before he even said it because he just went pale and kind of wouldn't look at me and was so upset. And that was, out of all my injuries, that was definitely the worst pain for me."

Freya Lewis has written a book about her horrifying experience: What Makes Us Stronger is published by Seven Dials. You can hear Ryan's full chat with Freya here.

Niall Ó Sioradáin