HORROR TO LAST FOREVER
HORROR TO LAST FOREVER'
By HELEN WEATHERS
FOR every member of the McAteer family, there are memories so terrible they will linger forever.
For Hugh McAteer, 53, it is water from a burst main washing over a victim so horrifically injured he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.
For wife Joan, it is bloodied faces as she desperately searched for her son Eion, 17, who was working in Omagh town centre on Saturday
For eldest son Ronan, 19, it is the haunted expressions of three best friends lying in hospital.
And for 14-year-old youngest son Colm, it is the blackness before he passed out in the street, overwhelmed by the scene of slaughter.
"What we saw will never leave us," said Mr Hugh McAteer, a college principal.
"None of us will ever be the same again. All I can see is that young person...I think it was a young man, lying there with blood and water rushing over his feet. How can you ever forget that."
Eion had gone to work as usual to stack shelves at the Super Value supermarket.
Ronan, a university student, was having a lie-in instead of meeting his old school pals in the town centre. Hugh and his wife were driving to Belfast to see an aunt and planned to drop off Colm to walk home after buying a video.
They were yards from the town centre when they heard a blast so huge it made their car shake. Mum Joan said: "We knew immediately it was
a bomb and we knew we had to go and find Eion.
"We just parked the car and ran to find him."
Amid the carnage, said her husband, young Colm saw sights that "no 14-year-old should ever have to see... bodies were everywhere".
Hugh added: "I went to a young girl. She was in shock and kept saying I can't feel my leg, I can't feel my leg'. I didn't want to tell her what had happened to it.
"She begged me to phone her brother on her mobile. I tried and tried but couldn't get through, all phones were down.
"A van came from nowhere and I picked her up and put her in the back."
His wife, frantic to find Eion, said: "I wanted to run and look at all the bodies, then I didn't just in case it was him.
"Then I saw him in the crowd and I ran over and hugged him and just said 'Thank God, thank God'."
By HELEN WEATHERS
FOR every member of the McAteer family, there are memories so terrible they will linger forever.
For Hugh McAteer, 53, it is water from a burst main washing over a victim so horrifically injured he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.
For wife Joan, it is bloodied faces as she desperately searched for her son Eion, 17, who was working in Omagh town centre on Saturday
For eldest son Ronan, 19, it is the haunted expressions of three best friends lying in hospital.
And for 14-year-old youngest son Colm, it is the blackness before he passed out in the street, overwhelmed by the scene of slaughter.
"What we saw will never leave us," said Mr Hugh McAteer, a college principal.
"None of us will ever be the same again. All I can see is that young person...I think it was a young man, lying there with blood and water rushing over his feet. How can you ever forget that."
Eion had gone to work as usual to stack shelves at the Super Value supermarket.
Ronan, a university student, was having a lie-in instead of meeting his old school pals in the town centre. Hugh and his wife were driving to Belfast to see an aunt and planned to drop off Colm to walk home after buying a video.
They were yards from the town centre when they heard a blast so huge it made their car shake. Mum Joan said: "We knew immediately it was
a bomb and we knew we had to go and find Eion.
"We just parked the car and ran to find him."
Amid the carnage, said her husband, young Colm saw sights that "no 14-year-old should ever have to see... bodies were everywhere".
Hugh added: "I went to a young girl. She was in shock and kept saying I can't feel my leg, I can't feel my leg'. I didn't want to tell her what had happened to it.
"She begged me to phone her brother on her mobile. I tried and tried but couldn't get through, all phones were down.
"A van came from nowhere and I picked her up and put her in the back."
His wife, frantic to find Eion, said: "I wanted to run and look at all the bodies, then I didn't just in case it was him.
"Then I saw him in the crowd and I ran over and hugged him and just said 'Thank God, thank God'."
Further Information
Publisher: THE MIRROR
Ref: TM/007
Published Date: 17-Aug-98
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