A taxi firm dispatcher picked up a sweeping brush and took on an armed paratrooper who rushed into the taxi office in pursuit of a wounded man, the inquiry heard yesterday.
The co-owner of the taxi firm in William Street, Mr Alexander Bradley, said that the wounded man - later identified as Mr Patrick O'Donnell, one of the Bloody Sunday injured - was hiding in the back office when several soldiers ran in looking for him.
The first two soldiers were aged 18 to 23, and he remembered that their eyes were very fixed and staring. "They were frightening to look at. I thought they must be on drugs of some sort," he said.
Both soldiers carried rifles in a firing position and one asked very aggressively: "Where did he go?" One soldier pointed his rifle at a woman in the office.
A third, very tall soldier arrived, and the dispatcher, Frankie Boyle, "went at" this soldier with a brush shaft. The soldier struck him on top of the head with his baton.
"Everything went quiet for a moment, and then blood started to run down Frankie Boyle's forehead," said the witness. "At this point one of the soldiers said: `Get out, all of you, or we'll shoot the lot of you'."
Mr Bradley said that those in the office followed the soldiers on to the street, and the wounded man joined them, but was not noticed by the soldiers. He said he then drove everybody - at least nine, and possibly up to 14 people - out of the area in his car.
Asked by Mr Christopher Clarke QC, for the tribunal, why so many had got into the car, the witness replied: "Pure fear."
Mr Arthur Harvey QC, for the families of several victims, quoted from Mr Boyle's own statement supplied to the inquiry in which he says he told the soldier not to point his rifle at him, "and that the best way to settle this would be for him to put his gun down and for us to sort this out outside."
Mr Boyle's statement goes on: "I pointed a sweeping brush at him and I told him if he did not get out I would wrap the rifle round his neck."
At this point a crowd was gathering outside and it looked as if two soldiers were trying to control about 20 arrested civilians, the statement continues. A soldier called to his colleague to "come and give me a hand with these scum here."
Mr O'Donnell gave evidence to the Widgery tribunal in 1972 of having been shot in Glenfada Park and marched by paratroopers to the vicinity of the taxi office.
Mr Bradley said that none of the persons in the taxi office incident, nor anybody else present, was taken into custody at that stage.
Another witness, Mr Andrew Barr, told how he hid under the stairs in the entrance to the Rossville flats. A soldier ran into the entrance, and the witness said he came out from his hiding place with his hands up.
"I didn't want to be shot like a rat in a hole. The soldier lowered his rifle to my head and held it . . . approximately 12 inches away . . . He was looking into my eyes. I was convinced was going to shoot me." He added that the soldier was "hyped up . . . His eyes were just standing in his head."
Mr Barr said that the late Mr Paddy Duffy was nearby. He tipped up the soldier's gun and said something like: "We don't want any trouble here."
An officer came in and pulled the soldier out of the flats.
The witness said that Mr Duffy, "a massive but very gentle man," worked as a bouncer and was known as "Barman Duffy". He was well respected locally. "In my opinion he saved my life that day," he said.
Mr Martin Tucker, who was aged 17 on Bloody Sunday, gave evidence of seeing six people shot at various points as he looked down from the window of his family's home in Rossville flats.
The inquiry continues today.