Substantial numbers of civilians went back onto the street, facing advancing paratroopers, even after the first salvoes of gunfire were heard on Bloody Sunday, it emerged yesterday.
Mr Gerard Greeve described running across the car park of Rossville Flats, past the body of Jackie Duddy, who was being tended to by Father Edward Daly.
He became caught up in a crowd which was sheltering in an alleyway between two blocks of the high flats, unable to go further because people were shouting that somebody had been shot out there, but terrified because he could see a soldier back in the car park pointing his rifle at the crowd.
Mr Greeve said he tried to get into a back door of the flats, but it was locked. Eventually another man kicked a door panel in and he got into Block 1 through the hole, along with other people.
He said there was a large number of people in the lobby of the flats, and when they believed the shooting had stopped they went out through the front door into Rossville Street.
The witness said he stood near the rubble barricade with up to 15 other people, talking and watching British soldiers running about. "I did not think I was in any danger as I stood at the barricade - I still thought that the soldiers were firing rubber bullets," he said. "I did not want to believe that it was live rounds." People were standing around, confused, he added.
After a couple of minutes there was a heavy burst of gunfire and he and others dropped to the ground. When the shooting eased he ran back through the front entrance of Block 1, noticing as he went that a soldier was aiming a rifle at him.
As he got through the door, he heard a thud outside and realised that a youth running behind him had been shot. He saw this youth, later identified as 17-year-old Kevin McElhinney, crawling towards the doorway and he pulled him inside as more shots rang out and a bullet hit the doorway.
However, another witness, Mr James Norris, who was a 19-year-old member of the Knights of Malta on that day, gave conflicting evidence of the last few minutes of Kevin McElhinney's life.
Mr Norris said that he was treating a man with a facial injury in one of the flats of Block 1 and decided to go out to try to find a doctor. He ran down the stairwell, and when he got into the lobby he found it was deserted. He could hear shooting outside.
At that moment, he said, "the doors were flung open and a fellow crashed through the doors as though he was in full flight. As I looked at him it seemed as though he was moving in slow motion as he suddenly ground to a halt." This person collapsed, the witness continued, and he lowered him to the ground, where he died within a minute. He now knew this man to have been Kevin McElhinney.
The inquiry continues today.