A man yanked his brother-in-law to safety from the scene where three men were shot dead on Bloody Sunday, the Saville Inquiry into the shootings heard today.
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Mr Don Carlin told the inquiry bullets were whizzing into the rubble barricade in Derry's Bogside and claimed that he pulled Daniel "Danno" Ryan away by the scruff of the neck during a lull in the gunfire.
Three of the 13 men killed on Bloody Sunday were gunned down on the barricade across the city's Rossville Street, and another three were shot in the area around it.
During day 134 of public hearings at the inquiry, Mr Carlin said he saw Danno crouching down behind the barricade after troops moved in in the wake of a civil rights march and opened fire on January 30th, 1972.
"I thought he was not safe there so I crawled out on my stomach to Danno and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and then dragged him back to the door at the southern end of Block 1 of the Rossville Flats.
"It was during a lull in the shooting that I went out to get Danno. There were still some people running south of the rubble barricade but there was no-one north of the rubble barricade by this time," Mr Carlin said. "I could still see the soldiers in their firing positions near Kells Walk".
Earlier, a man described how a father was wounded and fell to his knees as he went to the rescue of his fatally injured son on Bloody Sunday.
In a written statement, Mr Ronnie Ballard told the Saville Inquiry he saw Mr Alexander Nash collapse to face his 19-year-old son William, one of the 13 men shot dead during the march.
Mr Ballard was the first person in the witness box as the tribunal resumed public sittings in the city's Guildhall after the summer recess.
The inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, has been sitting in public since March 2000 and is still hearing from civilian witnesses.
It is expected to move on to the military witnesses by spring of next year.
PA