Warning: This story contains distressing details
A firefighter who attended the scene of the Omagh bomb has likened its aftermath to an image from the Vietnam War.
Paddy Quinn, who is a current commander for the Northern Ireland Fire Service in the Omagh district, was giving evidence to the inquiry into the 1998 Real IRA bombing.
Twenty-nine people were killed, including nine children, a woman pregnant with twins, and three generations of one family when the explosion ripped through the County Tyrone town.
Mr Quinn, an on-call officer at the time, told the inquiry that in his 29 years as a firefighter nothing he had responded to since the Omagh bomb has “ever come anywhere close”.
‘Total chaos’
He heard the explosion while working at his carpet shop and was the first to arrive at the fire station.
Mr Quinn said none of the firefighters were anxious as there was no mentions of casualties and they assumed the area had been cleared.
He thought they were going to be dealing with damaged buildings and clearing debris or possibly a fire.
He was on the first fire engine to go to Market Street and arrived at a scene of “total chaos, devastation, carnage”.
Referring to a famous photograph from the Vietnam War, he said: “There was a cloud dust and there was a young girl running across the road terrified, and that’s just the image I have of people from Omagh.”
He described to the inquiry the look of “disbelief” and “concern” on the faces of his fire service colleagues.
‘Where is my wife?’
He said they were local firefighters working in their home town, who were worried their own family members had been caught up in the bomb.
“They were asking where is my wife, my son, my daughter?” he said.
“But they continued to do the job they were called to do and that was help others and search for others.”
He recalled helping an injured woman onto an Ulsterbus and the floor of the bus was red with blood rather than blue.
Paddy Quinn referred to a saying within the fire service, which he said applies to his and others’ experience at Omagh.
“The saying is: “The firefighter may leave the incident, but the incident doesn’t leave the firefighter’,” he told the inquiry.
He explained that he has now been trained to provide help and advice to his colleagues in critical incident stress management and emotional trauma.
‘It was oddly quiet’
Richard Quigley described the horror of the aftermath of the bombing [BBC]
Paramedic Richard Quigley travelled to the scene from Altnagelvin Hospital.
When he arrived he said it was “oddly quiet” as patients had already been moved to hospital.
He remembered the smell of beer flowing down the street from the remains of a bar opposite the bomb site.
He said it was the first explosion he had attended and he was involved in recovering bodies which had been moved into shops and an alleyway.
“We had used all the bags we had,” he said, and had to source more from the fire service and military.”
The bags were then placed onto stretchers.
“I physically checked the body bags to see if I could identify which end was the head or legs.
“What shocked me was not being able to clearly identify either the head or the feet of the patients.”
‘I will never forget’
The remains were then transported to a temporary morgue at a nearby army camp.
Mr Quigley said: “I recall seeing the number of body bags laid out and each had its own area, all in rows with a chair at the end.
“The size of the gym and the number of the body bags on the floor was something that should only have been seen in a movie.”
Mr Quigley said he had not been able to return to Market Street or visit the memorial garden.
“I can still remember the smell of beer from the street corner.
“Will I ever walk through the alleyway were the bodies had been laid end to end? Probably never.
“Should I? Maybe I would get closure.
“I will never forget that day as it is my sister’s birthday and will always trigger memories.”
Later on Monday, the inquiry will hear from the family of James Barker, a 12-year-old student at Buncrana Primary School, who was killed in the attack while on a school trip.
His family previously described him as a “happy boy with an infectious smile”.
His mother, Donna Maria Barker, relocated to England 18 months after the explosion and James’s body was then reburied at his former school in Weybridge in Surrey.
She said she “never realised how green his eyes were” until she had to identify his body, adding: “That image will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
What was the Omagh bomb?
The car bomb exploded in Market Street on a busy Saturday afternoon when the streets were packed with shoppers [PA Media]
The bomb that devastated Omagh town centre in August 1998 was the biggest single atrocity in the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
It came less than three months after the people of Northern Ireland had voted yes to the Good Friday Agreement.
Who carried out the Omagh bombing?
Three days after the attack, the Real IRA released a statement claiming responsibility for the explosion.
It apologised to “civilian” victims and said its targets had been commercial.
Almost 27 years on, no-one has been convicted of carrying out the murders by a criminal court.
In 2009, a judge ruled that four men – Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly were all liable for the Omagh bomb.
The four men were ordered to pay a total of £1.6m in damages to the relatives, but appeals against the ruling delayed the compensation process.
A fifth man, Seamus McKenna, was acquitted in the civil action and later died in a roofing accident in 2013.