A man who crawled through gunfire to reach one of the Bloody Sunday dead has been praised for his courage by a lawyer representing British soldiers at the Saville Inquiry.
Mr Patrick Walsh braved the gunfire of British soldiers in Derry to crawl from safety to the body of Patrick Doherty.
Mr Walsh told the Saville Inquiry he could hear the "whoosh" of bullets passing over his head as he tended to the dead man.
The Derry man said he was trying to escape the shooting when he heard the "thud" of a body falling.
"I stopped and turned around to go and help the man. Fellows were passing me shouting `they're shooting at us, they're shooting at us, get out,' he said.
Mr Walsh said he started to crawl towards the man who, he later learned, was Patrick Doherty.
"I reached the body and began to search him. I wanted to find if there wasanything on him that would tell who he was. There wasn't anything," he said.
The witness said he lifted the victim's head to see if he was still alive but Mr Doherty didn't move.
He also searched the body for weapons. Mr Walsh said he thought Mr Doherty must have been armed if he had been shot but he did not find any weapons.
"I lifted his head to say a prayer to him. I didn't have my Rosary on me that day, it was in my work clothes and I remember being angry about that. I said a prayer over his body.
"As I was lying there with him, I heard the whoosh of bullets going over my head but I did not realise they were bullets at the time," he said.
Ms Eilis McDermott QC, counsel to Mr Doherty's family, publicly thanked Mr Walsh for the "heroism" he showed in his efforts to help the victim.
PA