A driver of a digger who worked until every last body was uncovered from the wreckage of the Creeslough tragedy has spoken for the first time since the disaster.
Henry Gallagher, from Treantagh near Letterkenny, has revealed in a new TG4 series that he was spurred to recover bodies from the tragedy which claimed the lives of 10 people last October because of the image of distraught relatives which he saw in his rearview mirror.
The documentary, Iniúchadh TG4 - An Craoslach, looks at how locals from the Donegal village came together to help rescue those trapped before emergency services got to the area.
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In the opening programme of the new series, which will be broadcast next Wednesday, February 8, 47-year-old Gallagher explains how he remained in the cab of his excavator for a total of 24 hours helping to remove rubble until the last body, that of 14-year-old Leona Harper, was recovered.
"You just see a river of high-vis vests (behind me) and I know that among that, there are families waiting on news," Gallagher said in an exclusive interview for the documentary.
"The only way that they are going to get the news of a loved one being taken out, is for me to get in. I wanted them out. I would have stayed in that digger for ages after that just until I got the bodies out.
"I done what any other person would have done. The ordinary people were amazing. I mean I’ve heard stories of people running into the building, people bringing other people out of the building.
“They were taking people out and they were crying (and) they were screaming. Any person we took out, wasn’t crying or screaming."
Another member of the local community who was among the first rescuers at the garage forecourt, lorry driver Colin Kilpatrick from Raphoe, Donegal, was making a delivery when he witnessed the explosion.
"People got out and people didn’t get out, but what we done, worked," he said.
"At the time of the tragic event in Creeslough, we heard about the extraordinary bravery and courage of the first wave of rescuers, local people who ran to help their trapped neighbours before the emergency services got there.
"This programme gives the ordinary people who helped a voice and hears in their own words the extraordinary things they did, often at great danger to themselves in the face of appalling adversity."
10 people lost their lives and eight were injured in the explosion at Lafferty’s supermarket in Creeslough on October 7. The fatalities were five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe and her dad Robert Garwe, 50, Catherine O'Donnell, 39, and her son James Monaghan, 13. Leona Harper, 14, Jessica Gallagher, 24, James O'Flaherty, 48, Martin McGill, 49, Martina Martin, 49 and Hugh Kelly, 59 also lost their lives.
Although Gardaí are still investigating the cause of the blast, a gas explosion remains a major line of inquiry.
The programme is the first of six in a monthly current affairs and investigative documentary series that looks at the headlines of major Irish news stories.
The series, which is presented by award-winning Belfast-based investigative journalist Kevin Magee, airs on TG4 on Wednesday, February 8 at 9:30pm and will also be available to view worldwide on the TG4 Player.
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