'Soldier fired as I carried Bloody Sunday victim'
The brother-in-law of a man killed on Bloody Sunday today recalled how a soldier shot at him as he carried the dying youth to safety.
George Leonard Downey told the Saville Inquiry that he tripped and threw Michael Kelly, 17, into an alleyway as bullets fired from behind hit the wall in front of him.
‘‘I cannot understand how I am still alive,’’ he said in evidence at the Guildhall, Derry.
Mr Kelly was one of the 13 men shot dead on January 30 1972 when paratroopers opened fire in the wake of a big civil rights demonstration in the city’s Bogside.
Mr Downey also told day 123 of the inquiry that the young victim had earlier refused to join his mother because he was embarrassed when she called him over to her during the course of the march.
‘‘I sometimes look back on that scene and think that if Michael had gone over to his mum, he would still be alive today.’’
He later described scenes of pandemonium as Army gunfire rang out and of seeing Mr Kelly with four others lying injured on a rubble barricade across Rossville Street, the main road into the Bogside.
Another man dragged the teenager off the road and Mr Downey said he carried him, helped by others, across the courtyard of Glenfada Park North - where at least two of the dead were shot when a soldier emerged from an alleyway.
‘‘He was half round the corner and was aiming,’’ he said.
‘‘I turned and ran with Michael still in my arms. I was shot at three times and bullets hit the wall in front of me. I cannot understand how I am still alive.
‘‘As I was running, I tripped, fell forward and threw Michael into the alley for safety.
‘‘As I lay on the ground I saw a big man, about 6ft 4ins pick Michael up and sling him over his shoulder like a baby. The man shouted to me, ‘run’, and I got up and ran through the alleyway. I heard shots as I ran.’’
Mr Downey said the teenager was taken into a house where he applied a white baby all-in-one suit as a makeshift dressing on his wound before a first aid Knight of Malta came in and took over.
‘‘She told me that ‘you’d better start praying’. I knelt forward and said an act of contrition in his ear.’’
