WEDDING DAY FULL OF TEARS
Wedding day full of tears
ONE Omagh couple will remember their wedding day for the rest of their lives for the most tragic of reasons - as a day of death and destruction .
For it was as Joan and Gary Clements toasted their nuptials at a wedding reception at Kesh, not far from Omagh, that news of the bomb blast broke.
The groom's mother Mary Clements said: "We had just had our dinner and the minister came up top us looking very upset.
"He said he didn't know how to tell us but there had been a terrible bomb and lots of people had been killed.
"He said nobody knew who had been killed but there was so many that probably some people at the reception should go and check that their families are OK."
The party atmosphere evaporated and one by one guests began to weep openly.
For they feared many of their friends and people they had known all their lives were among the casualties.
Among the guests were two brothers who were doctors and also two nurses. They abandoned the reception and made their way straight to Tyrone County Hospital.
Surgeon Finlay Clements, who lives in New Zealand and was only in the town for the wedding, set to helping other surgeons stitch the badly bleeding.
Meanwhile his brother Richard, a GP from Belfast, raced at top speed to the Royal Victoria Hospital to help tend the seriously injured who had been flown there.
Mrs Clements said: "They were like everyone else here they just wanted to do what they could to help.
"It's terrible for everybody, Joan and Gary remember their wedding day as the day lots of people they knew lost their lives or were injured."
ONE Omagh couple will remember their wedding day for the rest of their lives for the most tragic of reasons - as a day of death and destruction .
For it was as Joan and Gary Clements toasted their nuptials at a wedding reception at Kesh, not far from Omagh, that news of the bomb blast broke.
The groom's mother Mary Clements said: "We had just had our dinner and the minister came up top us looking very upset.
"He said he didn't know how to tell us but there had been a terrible bomb and lots of people had been killed.
"He said nobody knew who had been killed but there was so many that probably some people at the reception should go and check that their families are OK."
The party atmosphere evaporated and one by one guests began to weep openly.
For they feared many of their friends and people they had known all their lives were among the casualties.
Among the guests were two brothers who were doctors and also two nurses. They abandoned the reception and made their way straight to Tyrone County Hospital.
Surgeon Finlay Clements, who lives in New Zealand and was only in the town for the wedding, set to helping other surgeons stitch the badly bleeding.
Meanwhile his brother Richard, a GP from Belfast, raced at top speed to the Royal Victoria Hospital to help tend the seriously injured who had been flown there.
Mrs Clements said: "They were like everyone else here they just wanted to do what they could to help.
"It's terrible for everybody, Joan and Gary remember their wedding day as the day lots of people they knew lost their lives or were injured."
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/045
Published Date: 18-Aug-98
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