TC/1201

Bomb blast 'Miracle' girl recalls fateful day as she bravely treads path to recovery

NORA SPRATT eases herself gently onto her bed in Enniskillen's Erne Hospital, holding a giant teddy bear and a huge get well card. She is looking forward to getting home to Drumquin soon, and knows she could easily have been one of the fatal victims of Omagh's bomb atrocity.
The 18 year old student sustained hip and abdominal injuries and was in intensive care for three weeks. She will need another operation later in the year, but doctors are confident she will make a good recovery.
Her Father, Fred, puts his daughter's survival bluntly, saying: "it's a miracle."
He believes that it was only the skill and dedication of medical staff, and the selflessness of an Omagh man who got Nora to the Erne so quickly, which saved her life.
She is the last of the Omagh injured in the Erne Hospital, and hopes to get out next week or the week after.
Sitting on her hospital bed while a photograph is taken, Nora holds one of the 130 or so get well cards she has received. It is signed by the members of the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, who, all being well, she will be able to watch again in competition next season.
She is also hoping to be able to take up her position again in the front rank of the pipers of Whitehouse Pipe Band on parade.
Nora is a student at Omagh College of Further Education where she is studying for a GNVQ in child care. Her course involves several days a week working at the Heatherbank special school.
It is a study - and work - that she loves, and has always wanted to do. She is determined to finish her course, and the college has made special arrangements for her to keep up with her coursework while she is off.
Speaking to a Tyrone Constitution reporter in the calm of the visitors' room at the Erne's female surgical ward, Nora talks quietly and calmly of the events of August 15th, and the days which have followed.
Asked what she recalls about that fatal Saturday, she replies simply: "The whole day, right through from the blast until a minute or two before I went into theatre."
More accustomed to shopping in Castlederg than Omagh on a Saturday, she was in the town with two friends doing some messages.
She says: "We were standing outside Boots when a police car went up the street and said everybody had to move up to the other end of the town.
"We moved up near Wellworths and police were checking cars, it was the usual routine.
"When the bomb went off we were walking past the cake shop. Just one minute we were laughing and joking, and the next there was a big bang and a really big flash and I was knocked to the ground.
Screaming
"There was about five seconds of silence and I heard rubble falling but nobody spoke, and then, all of a sudden, there was screaming and people crying everywhere. It was really noisy."
Despite injuries to her hip, stomach and head, Nora remained conscious.
"I could see everybody moving about and helping ones that they could and people running about looking for friends that they knew.
"A girl came up to help me. She works in one of the shoe shops and at that stage I only knew her name was Karen. I know now she is Karen Burke."
"She stayed with me and helped me to stay awake and talked to me and reassured me. A man came up to me and asked if I could walk. I said I couldn't."
"Other people came up - I don't know how many - and they got me onto a door and brought me to a RUC van and tried to put the door into the back of it, but the door handle was catching.
"They put me back down on the ground again and one man lifted me and put me into the back of a car and sat inside with me as we went to the County Hospital. A policeman gave me a towel from a first aid kit to hold against my side," she recalls.
Asked what thoughts were going through her head at the time, Nora say's: "I was just thinking if I would live, or if I would see anybody again. At that stage everybody taking to me were complete strangers."
After the blast Nora was separated from her friends. They also were injured, but have since been able to leave hospital.
When she arrived at the County she saw scenes of "mayhem", Nora said.
"People were running about. There were a lot of cars and there was a bus at it and we couldn't get in."
"A man said there was no point in getting me in as there were a lot of people and I would not be seen straight away."
"Another man Cyril Walker had a car and said he was taking his son to the Erne. I was got out of one car and put into his," she said.
Mr. Walkers son sustained shrapnel wounds to his legs, and his father drove to Enniskillen in about half an hour.
On that journey Nora was in intense pain, but was more worried about a bleeding cut to her head, not realising how serious her other injuries were.
"All the time I wanted something for the pain and I was worried about how my family would find out. Nobody knew me and I don't know how they got my surname," she said.
Nora and Mr Walker's son were the first casualties to arrive at the Erne.
Continuing her story she said: "They tried to get me out of the car but at that stage the pain had intensified and I could not move. They got a white board and slip it underneath my back and got me out of the car and onto a bed. They started to put needles and a line into me and prepare me for theatre.
"The next thing I know I was going down a corridor and all I could see were the lights in the ceiling. I did not know what was happening. I was just in a state of shock at that stage.
"In the theatre I was OK until somebody touched my side and I started getting really hysterical. Then a black mask was put over me and I don't remember anything after that."
During the hours of surgery, doctors removed pieces of shrapnel from Nora's stomach. They also had to remove a short piece of intestine.
While all this was happening Nora's parents began worrying when she did not return home by bus.
They drove to Omagh, and it was only then they realised how serious the bomb had been. They went to the County Hospital and learned that Nora was in Enniskillen.
However, the information was that she was not too badly hurt, and Mrs Jean Spratt and Nora's 13 year old sister, Heather, drove to the Erne thinking that they were going to take her home.
It was not until early evening that they learned just how seriously she was hurt.
By that time Nora was in the operating theatre, but, her father says, it was not until 4am on Sunday before surgeons got her condition stabilised.
He said "she had lost a lot of blood and at first they did not hold out too much hope to us. They had to revive her twice in the theatre."
After the surgery, Nora woke on Sunday. "I wakened, but my eyes were closed and I could not open them. I could hear every thing that was going on around. I could hear the ventilator going up and down and me breathing in time with it."
"I could hear nurses but their voices seemed to be all blurry. I tried to move my hand to let them know that I hear, but I could not move it whatsoever," she said.
It was not until the Monday after the blast that Nora was able to speak. Since then her recovery rate has increased. Now she is able to get about slowly, though the injury to her hip makes it difficult to raise her right leg.
Asked if she still thinks of the blast she says: "It is in my head all the time. There is not a day goes past that I think about it and the things I saw."
She has had many visits from friends and relatives. Among the VIPs to visit were the Secretary of State, Dr. Mo Molam and boxer Barry McGuigan. She has both their autographs and says, with a smile of Barry McGuigan, "he's nice, very, very friendly." Lord Brookborough has also been in several times to see her.
She has received over 130 cards and dozens of teddy bears - so many in fact that she has had to send some home.
Time can drag while lying in a hospital bed but, Nora says the staff are "brilliant".
They are always talking to me and keeping me cheerful. I don't know how I could have managed otherwise," she said.
For their part, the staff are fond of Nora. "She's a really lovely girl," said one nurse.
Mr Spratt say's his family is indebted to the staff and to Mr Walker for taking Nora to the hospital so quickly.
"The surgeons told me how seriously Nora was hurt and how near she was to being one of those who did not make it after the bomb.
Fighter
"It's a miracle that she made it, but she's a real fighter," he said.
He is full of praise for Mr Walker.
"That man could have turned the key in his car and headed on up the road and never said a word to anyone. You could not say he was selfish, that is one sure thing."
For his part, Mr Walker dismisses any suggestion he did anything special.
"I did no more than I would expect others to do for my son" he said.
His son, Shane, spent nine days in hospital after the blast, but is now at home and walking with a crutch.
After the blast, Mr Walker and his wife went to the hospital to find Shane and his girlfriend who was also injured, and decided to take them to the Erne.
"We were just driving out of the back entrance to the hospital when I thought I had room in the car for one more and decided to go back and offer help. It was just a split second decision."
"Nora was in another car and we got her in with us. I drove down to the swinging bars and up campsie. I was in such a state I drove through the white tapes close to the bomb scene," he says.
He reckons that he travelled to Enniskillen in about 25 minutes, and he was the first to arrive. The staff there did not realise the scale of what had happened, but quickly moved in to help.
He believes Nora has made a remarkable recovery given the fact that nurses told him that if she had arrived five of ten minutes later she would not have survived.
He went in to see her every day for the first 10 days, and still visits regularly.
"I think she is very courageous when you consider how badly she was hurt," he added.

Publisher: TYRONE CONSTITUTION

Ref: TC/1201

Published Date: 17-Sep-98