COURT HEARS DETAILED STATEMENT FROM OFFICER
Court hears detailed statement from officer
A STATEMENT read out to the coroner's court this week detailed how Constable John Jeremy Graham Wells raced to the scene from Fintona. On arriving in Market Street he began treating victims using bandages from his first aid kit.
He recalled seeing the figure of a middle aged woman lying face up in the rubble. Her body was blackened and lacerated and she had sustained a serious wound to her abdomen. Another young woman in her 20s with dark trousers appeared to have lost part of her right leg.
The officer entered Libby's Pine Emporium to get a makeshift stretcher. There he saw a person lying on the ground covered from head to feet in a mustard coloured cloth. He met a grey haired priest who appeared shocked. He asked him to comfort the casualties.
Two bodies were lying covered with blankets in the rubble close to the Kozy Corner. A further three bodies lay near Nicholl and Shiels shop. One was partially clothed and he remembered another had a lot of flesh exposed.
He was later put in charge of bodies numbered 4, 5 and 6 which he accompanied to the morgue at Lisanelly. Once there, property belonging to each victim was placed beside the body which was then covered with a green cloth.
Traffic Warden Thomas Kerrigan had gone into the coffee shop above Nicholl and Shiels when the bomb exploded yards below him on the street. He estimated there were around 300-400 people in the general vicinity at the time of the blast. The coffee shop itself had been packed with between 50 and 100 customers.
Moments earlier the crowd had been taking the bomb scare 'very lightly'. As he attempted to stop cars from entering the town centre, some drivers had vented their anger at him. "When asked to move they got very irritated," he recalled.
A STATEMENT read out to the coroner's court this week detailed how Constable John Jeremy Graham Wells raced to the scene from Fintona. On arriving in Market Street he began treating victims using bandages from his first aid kit.
He recalled seeing the figure of a middle aged woman lying face up in the rubble. Her body was blackened and lacerated and she had sustained a serious wound to her abdomen. Another young woman in her 20s with dark trousers appeared to have lost part of her right leg.
The officer entered Libby's Pine Emporium to get a makeshift stretcher. There he saw a person lying on the ground covered from head to feet in a mustard coloured cloth. He met a grey haired priest who appeared shocked. He asked him to comfort the casualties.
Two bodies were lying covered with blankets in the rubble close to the Kozy Corner. A further three bodies lay near Nicholl and Shiels shop. One was partially clothed and he remembered another had a lot of flesh exposed.
He was later put in charge of bodies numbered 4, 5 and 6 which he accompanied to the morgue at Lisanelly. Once there, property belonging to each victim was placed beside the body which was then covered with a green cloth.
Traffic Warden Thomas Kerrigan had gone into the coffee shop above Nicholl and Shiels when the bomb exploded yards below him on the street. He estimated there were around 300-400 people in the general vicinity at the time of the blast. The coffee shop itself had been packed with between 50 and 100 customers.
Moments earlier the crowd had been taking the bomb scare 'very lightly'. As he attempted to stop cars from entering the town centre, some drivers had vented their anger at him. "When asked to move they got very irritated," he recalled.
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/1447
Published Date: 14-Sep-00
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