THE BLOOD WAS ACTUALLY RUNNING OUT THE DOORS
"The blood was actually running out of the doors"
TONY MCLAUGHLIN, 54
NOW retired, Tony was a paramedic in the first ambulance to arrive at the scene minutes after the bomb went off.
"There was this massive pile in the middle of the road where the shops had been tumbled out and there was bodies lying everywhere. We drove up and parked at Slevin's chemist, right beside the bomb.
"When we saw the massive scale of the thing we got on the radio right away and said 'Jesus get as many people here as you can, as many ambulances here as you can'.
"We got out of the ambulance to get a quick survey and there was a police sergeant on top of the pile and he shouted 'Tony this is massive, we need more help'.
"I went back to the radio again but when I got back to the radio the ambulance was full of people, people had started to carry them in straight away.
"There was a wee boy standing there crying and my partner, John, lifted him and his leg was just sliced off. We lifted him and his leg just stood there. So we lifted him in, went back and got the leg and drove back to casualty. I think we had four injured in that first run.
"When I got back people were using boards, using doors, using anything at all to put people on and put them in pickups, put them in anything at all.
"The work was made lighter for us because the people there at the time, they used cars, pickups, anything at all to bring them up to casualty.
"There were buses bringing them up too. It was a constant flow.
"Casualty was unreal. The blood was actually running out of the doors.
"The consultants were in then but there was no way they could see all the people, the amount of people, they were lined up corridors.
"At the time you just had to concentrate on what you were doing. You should never have been asked to do what we did that day but I mean it had to be done, the people needed help.
"I knew most of those caught up in it. There were people there asking us for their wives or their husbands and we knew they were dead, be we couldn't tell them, it was breaking your heart. I never expected to come across anything like. We've done shootings and bombings and things before but the scale of that was unreal."
TONY MCLAUGHLIN, 54
NOW retired, Tony was a paramedic in the first ambulance to arrive at the scene minutes after the bomb went off.
"There was this massive pile in the middle of the road where the shops had been tumbled out and there was bodies lying everywhere. We drove up and parked at Slevin's chemist, right beside the bomb.
"When we saw the massive scale of the thing we got on the radio right away and said 'Jesus get as many people here as you can, as many ambulances here as you can'.
"We got out of the ambulance to get a quick survey and there was a police sergeant on top of the pile and he shouted 'Tony this is massive, we need more help'.
"I went back to the radio again but when I got back to the radio the ambulance was full of people, people had started to carry them in straight away.
"There was a wee boy standing there crying and my partner, John, lifted him and his leg was just sliced off. We lifted him and his leg just stood there. So we lifted him in, went back and got the leg and drove back to casualty. I think we had four injured in that first run.
"When I got back people were using boards, using doors, using anything at all to put people on and put them in pickups, put them in anything at all.
"The work was made lighter for us because the people there at the time, they used cars, pickups, anything at all to bring them up to casualty.
"There were buses bringing them up too. It was a constant flow.
"Casualty was unreal. The blood was actually running out of the doors.
"The consultants were in then but there was no way they could see all the people, the amount of people, they were lined up corridors.
"At the time you just had to concentrate on what you were doing. You should never have been asked to do what we did that day but I mean it had to be done, the people needed help.
"I knew most of those caught up in it. There were people there asking us for their wives or their husbands and we knew they were dead, be we couldn't tell them, it was breaking your heart. I never expected to come across anything like. We've done shootings and bombings and things before but the scale of that was unreal."
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT10An/14
Published Date: 13-Aug-08
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