CARERS WILL NOT FORGET THE HORRORS OF THAT DAY
Carers will not forget the horrors of that day
DOCTORS, nurses and counsellors who dealt with the aftermath of the Omagh bomb have given harrowing accounts of what they had to
cope with. Six mental health nurses from a hospital near to the Tyrone County Hospital, which received more than 200 injured people, went to
help in the casualty ward.
Yesterday they spoke of people lying in blood-filled corridors, many with limbs missing as the stench of burning human flesh filled the air.
Staff nurse Marian Skeath. said: "I have never seen anything like this before.
"There was a lady and she had her family with her but there was nothing more that could be done and she was dead.
"She had to be taken off the trolley she was on and put on the floor because someone else now needed the trolley,
It was an awful decision but it had to be made.
"Her son said, 'Anywhere but on the floor', so we made her a makeshift structure.
"I will never forget the look on her family's faces. When someone dies they deserve the respect of a living person."
Fellow nurse Alison Casement, who has been in the job for 27 years, said "It was like walking into a battlefield. There was blood everywhere and there were screaming children. "I did not know who to go to first. It is a sight I will never forget.
Her colleague Thomas McFarland said: "Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
"People were lying on the floor with limbs missing and there was blood all over the place. People were crying for help and looking for something to kill the pain. Other people were crying out looking for relatives. "You could not really be trained for what you had seen unless you were trained in Vietnam or somewhere like that."
DOCTORS, nurses and counsellors who dealt with the aftermath of the Omagh bomb have given harrowing accounts of what they had to
cope with. Six mental health nurses from a hospital near to the Tyrone County Hospital, which received more than 200 injured people, went to
help in the casualty ward.
Yesterday they spoke of people lying in blood-filled corridors, many with limbs missing as the stench of burning human flesh filled the air.
Staff nurse Marian Skeath. said: "I have never seen anything like this before.
"There was a lady and she had her family with her but there was nothing more that could be done and she was dead.
"She had to be taken off the trolley she was on and put on the floor because someone else now needed the trolley,
It was an awful decision but it had to be made.
"Her son said, 'Anywhere but on the floor', so we made her a makeshift structure.
"I will never forget the look on her family's faces. When someone dies they deserve the respect of a living person."
Fellow nurse Alison Casement, who has been in the job for 27 years, said "It was like walking into a battlefield. There was blood everywhere and there were screaming children. "I did not know who to go to first. It is a sight I will never forget.
Her colleague Thomas McFarland said: "Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
"People were lying on the floor with limbs missing and there was blood all over the place. People were crying for help and looking for something to kill the pain. Other people were crying out looking for relatives. "You could not really be trained for what you had seen unless you were trained in Vietnam or somewhere like that."
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0114
Published Date: 20-Aug-98
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