A priest and a young first aid man were obstructed by paratroopers
when they tried to minister to Bloody Sunday victims whose bodies had been thrown into a Saracen armoured vehicle, the inquiry was told.
Mr Bernard Feeney, aged 17 at the time, was a uniformed Order of Malta medical volunteer. He said that a hysterical woman screamed at him and Fr John Irwin that she had seen three bodies thrown into the back of a Saracen.
He said he went with Fr Irwin and spoke to a soldier, who appeared to be a sergeant, among a group standing around a parked Saracen. They asked him if there were any bodies in the back of the vehicle. "He said 'There is no f...ing way there are any bodies'," said the witness.
They went back to the woman, who again became hysterical and pointed to the same Saracen. Mr Feeney said they returned to the army vehicle, along with another priest, Fr Anthony Mulvey, who approached an officer and demanded that the doors should be opened.
After an initial refusal and "an aggressive verbal confrontation", the doors were eventually opened and they saw three bodies piled inside. Mr Feeney said he recognised John Young and William Nash, who had been at school with him.
The priests administered the last rites and he checked that there was no pulse. Afterwards the first soldier "just laughed at us and said 'I told you there were no bodies there'."
The witness also described how a British army chaplain intervened to save him and a colleague as they were being beaten up by soldiers later.
Mr Feeney said that he and another first aid man, Charlie McMonagle, were on their way out of the Bogside to get an ambulance for casualties when they ran into a group of soldiers.
They were spread-eagled against an army vehicle and the soldiers took his medical kit bag and started rummaging through it, he said: "A soldier then tipped it on to the floor. He ordered my colleague to pick the contents up. I was then hit on the back by a baton. I had my legs kicked apart.
"The next thing I knew was that a soldier opened a slat on the Saracen (armoured vehicle) next to my head and hit me on the forehead just between my eyes with his baton. (While) this was going on the soldiers were being extremely abusive, calling us Irish bastards and other names.
"The soldier inside the Saracen asked me 'how many did we get'? I did not answer him so he asked me again. At this stage I was having my legs kicked and my back prodded and hit with a baton ... I was more concerned with my own pain. The soldier continued 'I'll tell you how many we got - eight dead'. He then laughed (and) continued 'eight down and there will be more before bedtime'.
Mr Feeney said he was extremely relieved to see an army chaplain in officer's uniform walking up the street towards them. He recognised him as a chaplain who sometimes liaised with the Order of Malta to provide treatment to soldiers behind army lines.
The chaplain intervened and the two first aiders were allowed to go. Mr Feeney said the chaplain apologised for the way they had been treated.
Another witness, Mr John Barrett, described fleeing in a panic when he saw soldiers dismounting from armoured vehicles and firing their rifles from the hip. He ran into Rossville Flats and up to the first floor with another man.
There were a dozen or so women there, he said, and they were shouting that the soldiers were going to come in and kill the men - "The other man and I lay down in the area of the lift ... and the women lay on top of us."
After a while he heard that people had been shot, and he ran into the flat of a caretaker who was a friend of his father. "I was still petrified and I was panicking and swearing to the effect that people had been shot," he said. "I remember that the caretaker was sitting down with his wife watching 'The Golden Shot' on television. Sounds of the military were not unusual in Derry in that period and they did not seem to be bothered by what was going on."
