IMAGES OF CARNAGE WON'T GO AWAY
Images of carnage won't go away
By Rosie Uffindell
FOUR months on and the images of August 15 return again and again to Stephanie Colton.
The 17-year-old St Brigid's student had been with a group of friends in town, looking for things for the new school term. They were talking about the GCSE results which were due out the following week and she had popped in to see her mum in the bookshop.
Half-an-hour later, Stephanie felt what she described as "an explosion inside me". What had been a typical Saturday shopping scene had turned into one of utter carnage and chaos.
Stephanie could see people lying with their faces blackened and their clothes blown off. She had got separated from her friend Emma-Kate and she had seen a woman lying in the road, dressed in the same clothes her mum had been wearing, with her face "all blown up".
She stumbled from the bomb scene with what she thought was just a broken ankle. She had no idea her legs were in holes or that a hunk of metal was wedged in her chest underneath her clothes.
Stephanie was taken to Tyrone County Hospital by friends and sat in a wheelchair waiting for her turn while she watched people being brought in wrapped in blankets, screaming.
But when her time came, Stephanie couldn't get out of the wheelchair. It was to be the start of four months of hospital treatment and of a painful process of learning how to walk again.
Her mother and friend had been OK after all. Stephanie's mum and dad had found their daughter at 7pm that Saturday night and neither Mrs Colton nor Emma-Kate had a scratch on them.
But Stephanie was to learn that another friend's aunt, who had been standing just in front of Stephanie when the bomb went off, had been killed. An old friend, Sam McFarland, had been killed. And her cousin Nicola was in intensive care with injuries to her legs.
Four months on, Stephanie sometimes still feels that explosion well up inside her.
"The images return. I see the people I saw in casualty, a wee images come back. Whenever there's bomb scares it all comes back.
"The trauma centre has given me a lot of support and Emma-Kate understands because she was there too. But she doesn't like to talk about it much."
Last week Stephanie was formally discharged from hospital. She still has shrapnel in her legs and bears the scars from the operations she has been through.
She has braved Market Street again, taking a deep breath before returning to the scene of so much pain. She has been to the switch-on of the Christmas lights and she has seen the town attempt to return to some kind of normality.
Yet everything is different: Christmas in particular will be different this year. "It is just a time to get through. I will think of all the people and I will go to see my friend whose auntie was killed."
Stephanie believes the police will probably catch the bombers but not the people who organised it
"They need to find the top people but they will never get them. It will just go on and on.
"You wouldn't mind going through this if you thought it was the last one, but what will actually happen is a different story.
"But I do hope this will be it. I hope 1999 will bring peace and that there will be no more fighting between Protestants and Catholics.
"But even last Saturday night police were called to stop a fight. You'd think people would learn, they shouldn't be fighting after what has happened.
"It's been going on for 30 years but that doesn't mean it has to continue."
As Christmas and the so-called season of goodwill approaches, Stephanie has just one message for the politicians -just try to work it out "There has to be giving on both sides."
But on Christmas morning itself, the first thought in Stephanie's mind will be far more personal.
"Just waking up and thinking, I am here when I might not have been."
By Rosie Uffindell
FOUR months on and the images of August 15 return again and again to Stephanie Colton.
The 17-year-old St Brigid's student had been with a group of friends in town, looking for things for the new school term. They were talking about the GCSE results which were due out the following week and she had popped in to see her mum in the bookshop.
Half-an-hour later, Stephanie felt what she described as "an explosion inside me". What had been a typical Saturday shopping scene had turned into one of utter carnage and chaos.
Stephanie could see people lying with their faces blackened and their clothes blown off. She had got separated from her friend Emma-Kate and she had seen a woman lying in the road, dressed in the same clothes her mum had been wearing, with her face "all blown up".
She stumbled from the bomb scene with what she thought was just a broken ankle. She had no idea her legs were in holes or that a hunk of metal was wedged in her chest underneath her clothes.
Stephanie was taken to Tyrone County Hospital by friends and sat in a wheelchair waiting for her turn while she watched people being brought in wrapped in blankets, screaming.
But when her time came, Stephanie couldn't get out of the wheelchair. It was to be the start of four months of hospital treatment and of a painful process of learning how to walk again.
Her mother and friend had been OK after all. Stephanie's mum and dad had found their daughter at 7pm that Saturday night and neither Mrs Colton nor Emma-Kate had a scratch on them.
But Stephanie was to learn that another friend's aunt, who had been standing just in front of Stephanie when the bomb went off, had been killed. An old friend, Sam McFarland, had been killed. And her cousin Nicola was in intensive care with injuries to her legs.
Four months on, Stephanie sometimes still feels that explosion well up inside her.
"The images return. I see the people I saw in casualty, a wee images come back. Whenever there's bomb scares it all comes back.
"The trauma centre has given me a lot of support and Emma-Kate understands because she was there too. But she doesn't like to talk about it much."
Last week Stephanie was formally discharged from hospital. She still has shrapnel in her legs and bears the scars from the operations she has been through.
She has braved Market Street again, taking a deep breath before returning to the scene of so much pain. She has been to the switch-on of the Christmas lights and she has seen the town attempt to return to some kind of normality.
Yet everything is different: Christmas in particular will be different this year. "It is just a time to get through. I will think of all the people and I will go to see my friend whose auntie was killed."
Stephanie believes the police will probably catch the bombers but not the people who organised it
"They need to find the top people but they will never get them. It will just go on and on.
"You wouldn't mind going through this if you thought it was the last one, but what will actually happen is a different story.
"But I do hope this will be it. I hope 1999 will bring peace and that there will be no more fighting between Protestants and Catholics.
"But even last Saturday night police were called to stop a fight. You'd think people would learn, they shouldn't be fighting after what has happened.
"It's been going on for 30 years but that doesn't mean it has to continue."
As Christmas and the so-called season of goodwill approaches, Stephanie has just one message for the politicians -just try to work it out "There has to be giving on both sides."
But on Christmas morning itself, the first thought in Stephanie's mind will be far more personal.
"Just waking up and thinking, I am here when I might not have been."
Further Information
Publisher: THE IRISH NEWS
Ref: IN/0248
Published Date: 12-Dec-98
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