An Omagh traffic warden, Ms Rosemary Ingram, dazed and suffering from multiple injuries after the bomb explosion, found herself holding a badly injured baby as she was rushed to hospital in a car with other wounded, the inquest hearing was told yesterday.
Ms Ingram described how, during the bomb alert, she was asked by a policeman to take over point duty at a junction and prevent traffic from entering the town's Market Street.
She said she had difficulty controlling the junction because many drivers would not obey her directions and sought to question her about what was happening.
When the explosion happened in Market Street she thought at first that a vehicle had struck her from behind. She was in a daze and was crying and calling for someone to get an ambulance.
A police car stopped beside her. There were injured people in it, and she got into the front seat. "Someone handed me a wee baby," she said. The baby was not moving. She was stiff, but she could feel a strong heartbeat.
She told Ms Emma Loughran, counsel to the coroner, that she found out later that the baby was Breda Devine (20 months), a deceased victim of the bombing.
Ms Ingram said that when they arrived at Tyrone County Hospital "I got up and my legs just left me. I fell onto my back, still holding the wee baby. I shouted for someone to please take the wee baby, which somebody did."
She got up and walked into the hospital, and was put in a bed for examination of her head wound. She added: "I had to jump off the bed myself because there was a seriously hurt person who needed help."
After some time she was taken to Erne Hospital in Enniskillen and was treated for multiple injuries to her head and body, including a serious injury to her hip. She said she had still not fully recovered and had only been able to resume work temporarily.
In reply to Mr Michael Mansfield QC, for the family of Ms Elizabeth Rush, the witness said she had dealt only with moving cars, and not pedestrians, during the bomb alert. She was not aware of anyone dealing with pedestrians at the same junction or trying to prevent them going up Market Street.
Another traffic warden, Mr Thomas Kerrigan, said that some members of the public got quite irritated and angry when asked to obey directions on the day.
A British army doctor, Capt Samuel Potter, a medical officer in the Royal Irish Regiment, said he was in Lissanelly Army Camp outside Omagh when he heard the detonation. He immediately went to the camp medical centre and organised all the medical staff to stand by there.
He went to Omagh town centre, arriving at about 3.30 p.m., and was directed to a number of bodies lying along the street. "I moved along all the bodies looking for signs of life, but there was none," he said.
Capt Potter said that between 3.30 p.m. and 4.10 p.m. he pronounced life extinct on 20 bodies and one body part. He told the hearing that he found the body of 18-month-old Maura Monaghan beneath that of her mother, Avril Monaghan, in a shop doorway, while the body of Ms Monaghan's mother, Mary Grimes, lay inside the shop.
Reserve Const Rodney Allerton described running into the dust and smoke and meeting people who had head and leg injuries. "I started to realise the horror of what I was seeing; it was total carnage," he said. "Some of the injuries were so bad that even a field dressing did not cover the wound."
Const Kenneth McFarland described seeing one child who "was badly burned and indeed continued burning".