THE TRIAL of two men accused of the Real IRA murder of two British soldiers outside a Co Antrim army base in 2009 heard yesterday of the frantic efforts to keep one victim alive as he was taken to hospital.
Colin Duffy (44) of Forest Glade in Lurgan and Brian Shivers (46) of Sperrin Height Mews in Magherafelt deny the murders of Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, and the attempted murder of six others.
Mr Justice Hart was yesterday also shown a series of video stills taken from three cameras at the army base. The attack took just 34 seconds from when the gunmen started firing to when they stepped back into the getaway car.
Belfast Crown Court, sitting in Antrim, earlier heard a statement read out by prosecution QC Paul Ramsey which also told how friends of Sapper Quinsey (24) kept encouraging and willing him to stay alive as he was taken to hospital. As the statement from paramedic Thomas McCauley was read, Pamela Brankin, Sapper Quinsey’s mother, sat at the back of the court, wiping tears from her eyes.
Mr Ramsey, reading from the statement, told how paramedics rushed to Massareene Barracks on March 7th, 2009, after being told of a “multiple blue . . . at red”, code for a multiple shooting at the base.
In his statement Mr McCauley described how he found a soldier being treated outside the base gates and of the decision to rush him to the nearby Antrim Area Hospital.
He said that as his colleague drove the ambulance he travelled in the back with the sapper and other soldiers, one of whom battled to stem blood from a neck wound, while another saw to an already applied army dressing.
Mr McCauley said all the while the soldier’s friends kept “encouraging and willing the patient to respond to our efforts at resuscitation” as they raced to the hospital.
The ambulance man said he later learned his patient had been Sapper Quinsey who subsequently died from his wounds.
Earlier the court heard from an ambulance dispatcher as she described someone with an accent calling from Massareene, “shouting down the phone at me, that there was a shooting and that he was bleeding from the arm”.
She said that before she could get any more information from the soldier he hung up as the alarm sounded in the background.
A civilian security guard at the base also described the “pandemonium” following the shooting with soldiers “shouting for an ambulance, while others shouted for a med-pack”.
The guard said that initially when he heard “a dozen bangs” he thought they were fireworks, but then realised it was shooting, “automatic gunfire”.
He said a soldier dived through the barracks gates, and then it “clicked, this was a proper attack”, and as the alarm went off he ran forward drawing his pistol.
He could still hear gunfire and shouting and “looked up and saw a car, a dark blue car” which he took to be a Toyota Avensis, and “spotted the silhouette of the driver”.
From behind the door he could “see flashes”, but then the car began to reverse away.
The car sped off in the direction of Randalstown, away from Antrim. He ran forward and found a wounded colleague and a soldier and then a passing car stopped and a nurse got out and helped to provide first-aid.
The court heard from a forensic scientist who claimed that some of the recovered bullets matched those found at the scene of two earlier shootings, one at Randalstown police station and one at Strand Road station in Derry. Both attacks took place in 2004.
The court also heard that identification marks found on bullets showed they were from military stock manufactured in 1982 and originated from the former Yugoslavia and in the past had been attributed as having been used by the Provisional IRA.
The case continues on Monday.