A Homeless Man Is Being Hailed A Hero For Helping Manchester Victims

On Monday, May 22, a massive explosion went off at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, leaving at least 22 people dead and reportedly hundreds more injured. Reports of the incident paint an incredibly grisly scene, as authorities say the explosion came from a bomb packed full of nails. It's one more horrible high-profile attack on a European sports and/or entertainment venue in recent years, and British broadcaster ITV got a firsthand account ― a homeless man named Steve described the Manchester bombing to the channel, detailing the aftermath of the attack and how he tried to help.

To be clear, Steve is the only name ITV gave for the man ― no last name, in other words. Speaking the morning after the attack, Steve explained how he and a friend felt compelled to try to help the wounded victims of the attack, many of them children and young girls who'd just finished seeing Grande perform.

Be fore warned, it's pretty a pretty graphic description, so if you've had enough of thinking about people being slain by explosive devices in the last 24 hours you might want to skip it. But if you're interested, ITV put out a clip of it's interview with Steve in the tweet embedded below.

Just because I'm homeless, it doesn't mean I haven't got a heart and I'm not human still. They needed the help, I'd like to think someone would come and help me if I needed the help. It's just instinct, isn't it, to go and help, if someone needed your help. And it was children, and it was a lot of children with blood all over them and crying and screaming. We were having to pull nails out of their arms, and a couple out of this little girl's face. ... Some lady, she got cut from the side, so my mate had to hold her legs up and then an ambulance guy came and a fireman and they assisted after that. We just held her legs up, because we thought she was going to bleed right out. ... It had to be done. You had to help, if I didn't help, I wouldn't be able to live with myself for walking away and leaving kids like that.

The ITV video with Steve's interview has been retweeted more than 40,000 times, and many people on social media are calling him a hero for his efforts.

Steve and his friend were not the only bystanders to offer aid and care to people injured in the blast, pending the arrival of emergency services. His example has gotten some considerable attention as a striking and inspiring story, however, and it most definitely is.

That said, it's sad that anyone would take it as a surprise that someone with little in the way of money or material possessions would try to help grievously injured children ― the world still contains a lot of unfair stigmas about homelessness, sad to say.