RUC officers told the Omagh bombing inquest yesterday of the scenes of carnage in which they found themselves immediately after the explosion.
Relatives of the 29 people killed in the bombing on August 15th, 1998, were given the opportunity to leave the hearing before the graphic police evidence began. Of those who remained, some were visibly distressed as the eyewitness descriptions unfolded.
Const Gary McClatchey told of being detailed at about 2.35 p.m. to go to Omagh town centre because of a bomb warning there. He described entering various business premises, shouting out that there was a bomb warning, and attempting to clear the shops. He also warned drivers away from the area.
He ushered people down Foundry Lane, away from High Street, and he recalled also pushing back several young foreign girls who were walking up the lane.
Const McClatchey recalled hearing a message over his radio that there were four minutes left to the time given in the bomb warning. He ran to the corner of High Street, looked both ways, and saw that the street was clear. Then he heard the explosion - a loud, dull thud. Shop shutters rattled and glass shattered and a plume of smoke arose. He said he knew immediately the location was Market Street, down which he had ushered people earlier.
As he approached the scene he saw a young male motionless on the street and then saw a burning engine block, around which were two other constables and members of the public. He ran to it and saw that a young girl was trapped under it. He believed she was later identified as Ms Pauline Green. After several attempts, they managed to free her (Ms Green survived, in spite of her injuries).
Const McClatchey said that at that time he saw wounded people in the road, some sitting, some standing - "There were so many". He saw a young girl, believed to have been Debra Ann Cartright, under rubble outside McElroy's shop. She was alive but unconscious and appeared to have a serious head injury. After dragging her out, he stayed with her and made her comfortable. He and other constables then put her on a door and carried her to a police vehicle, which took her away.
He saw about four or five bodies outside another shop entrance. All were motionless and had "horrific injuries". He saw several bodies in a crater partly filled with water.
He said he rummaged through shoes strewn around McElroy's shop, as he had heard people shouting earlier, "Where's the baby?" but he found nothing.
The witness described being handed various objects believed to be the belongings of people who had died.
Replying to the coroner, Mr John Leckey, Const McClatchey said he believed from the messages he received that the bomb would be in the town centre outside the courthouse, and that the immediate threat was in that vicinity. His interpretation of the town centre at that time was that it was in or around the High Street/Bridge Street area and around the courthouse.
He told the coroner that this incident happened approximately 12 weeks after he had left RUC training school. "A baptism of fire with a vengeance," said Mr Leckey.
Const James Morrell, the driver of a patrol car in Omagh on the day of the bombing, described responding to a radio call at approximately 2.35 p.m. and driving to the town centre. He was clearing pedestrians from the Georges Street area when the explosion happened in Market Street. He saw a huge dust cloud and many walking casualties with cuts and puncture wounds.
Approaching the scene, he encountered a young boy with puncture wounds to the body and a badly-scorched head. All this boy said to him was "I Spanish, I Spanish." The witness applied a field dressing to the boy's most severe injury and told two uninjured civilians to stay with him and to keep applying pressure to the dressing.
He also applied a dressing to the severe leg injuries of a woman who was sitting in the middle of the street. As he had no dressings left, he ran to Boots chemists for rolls of bandages and packs of cloth nappies, which he gave to people tending to the injured.
He began to search premises, and found two women in McElroy's shoeshop who were in a deep state of shock. He then assisted in removing various bodies from the scene.
In reply to the coroner, Const Morrell said he could not recall the specific information he was given in the radio call, but the courthouse was a focal point in the warning: "It [the bomb] could have been anywhere in that area. I took it that the bomb could have been anywhere along High Street."
In earlier evidence, Sgt Joseph McEwen, a supervisor in the control room at the Belfast Regional Headquarters of the RUC, told Mr John Coyle, counsel for the next of kin of Ms Elizabeth Rush, that there were "force instructions" relating to bomb warnings from the Samaritans. Any such messages were to be transmitted immediately to the local control room.
Asked if there were similar instructions in relation to such messages from the media, the witness replied: "Not that I'm aware of. It's down to common sense really."