Enniskillen man reflects on ambulance service career

Some 11 years earlier he witnessed first-hand a similar scene in his hometown of Enniskillen, as one of the first emergency responders to attend the Remembrance Day bombing on November 8, 1987.

We are sitting at the edge of Lough Erne where Mark, who is celebrating his 66th birthday today (Thursday) finds solace. As he reflected on his 38-and-a-half-year-long career as an Emergency Medical Technician, ahead of his retirement next Monday (July 31), he admitted how the Omagh and Enniskillen bombings are etched into his mind.

On the day of the Omagh bombing, Mark had been on duty in Enniskillen when the call came through and he was tasked to the incident.

“We had an open channel radio at that time to let [everyone] know what was happening. On the way down, they kept giving us updates.

“There’s possibly three dead on arrival, and then the next one, six, eight, 10. It was just rising and rising.

“I said to my colleague, ‘what are we going into here?’”

‘Pandemonium’

Arriving at the scene, Mark and his colleagues were met with what he could only describe as “absolute pandemonium”.

“People running everywhere, screaming. The buildings were in ruins.

“The devastation was terrible. There were bodies lying all over the street,” he said, his voice breaking as he vividly recalled the scene.

“We brought the injured up to the front of the hospital in Omagh and the whole area was littered with people lying, waiting to be treated because there was no room inside. It was a very, very small A&E area,” said Mark, recalling how due to the lack of space in the emergency room, there were also people lying on mattresses outside the hospital.

“Then we got the task of loading helicopters. They were arriving from all over and [patients] were being transferred to Craigavon, Derry, and all the hospitals in Belfast,” he explained.

Mark started that morning at 8am and didn’t leave the scene until 11pm that night.

‘On autopilot’

“I would say I was on autopilot. It wasn’t until afterwards, when I sat down and really thought about it, that I thought to myself, ‘what have we just been through’.”

A few weeks afterwards, in September 1998, Mark was attending a Manchester United match with his son, when it truly hit him, a specific moment transporting him back to the scene in Omagh.

“We managed to get last minute tickets for a Manchester United game at Old Trafford. We were sitting in the crowd and United scored a goal and the whole [stadium roared].

“Just at that particular time, I was back in Omagh,” he said, explaining how the crowd shouting in the stadium at that moment, reflected the sounds of people crying, shouting and screaming at the scene of the bomb.

“It was fleeting. And for years after it, I didn’t let it get to me.

“But every year when it comes up, you think about the poor people who were injured and killed in that situation.”

Role

Mark began his role as an Emergency Medical Technician in January 1985.

Explaining that working for the ambulance service was never something that he had wanted to do, he found himself drawn to the vocation after coming across a road traffic accident one evening in the 1980s.

“There were a few people injured in it and I helped out as best I could but then obviously the ambulance service arrived,” he said.

“I suppose that gave me the impetus to maybe try something else,” said Mark, who at the time had been working for Maine Soft Drinks.

In August 1984, he applied for a role in the ambulance service after seeing a recruitment advertisement in the newspaper. After months of interviews, he secured the position of Emergency Medical Technician.

Two and a half years later, he was at the scene of the Enniskillen bombing in his hometown.

“It was a traumatic scene, like a war zone,” said Mark, who was one of the first emergency responders to attend it.

The scene of devastation in the moments following the Enniskillen bomb as rescuers try to pull people from the rubble.

He recalled the sounds of alarms and how the area was covered in dust and rubble.

“Some bits of masonry were still falling, people were shouting and crying.

“There were 60 to 70 people injured at the scene, and there were the deceased as well,” he said, wide-eyed as he remembered the traumatic sights.

“You can’t take it home with you. If you do, you are in big trouble. You don’t forget about them but there’s still certain things that you will remember in the days after it, even simple things like, ‘could I have done anything different’,” he added.

Lengthy career

Mark Curry pictured with his colleagues.

During his lengthy career with the ambulance service, Mark attended various types of emergencies. He noted how there were times that he tended to patients who had injuries which he believed were related to domestic abuse.

“It’s not something that you would see often, but appears to be rising, bit by bit,” he said of the issue of domestic abuse in Fermanagh.

“When I first started in the early 80s, there wasn’t the same media coverage that there is now. You saw it and you kind of let it slip by. There wasn’t a big thing about reporting it, but when you got to A&E, you explained to the nurses and staff there, what you thought was the situation. It was up to them then to go through their avenues.”

He said observing domestic abuse “makes me very angry, and it has done from the beginning”.

“There are certain injuries that you see. Facial injuries, massive bruising on the arms and maybe some bruises on the body as well.

“You know that they haven’t come from a normal fall.

“There’s usually quite a stark silence in the house if a partner is at the scene,” he explained.

He said although he has more frequently seen the effects of domestic abuse against females, it is an issue affecting men, too.

“I’ve seen one instance of a male who had been hit with a saucepan, who had been battered quite a lot but was afraid to come out and say it,” said Mark. He said the societal pressures of men to “appear macho” and how he believes that this could impact on males reporting domestic abuse incidents.

“Nowadays you have various avenues that you can go through to report.”

Retirement

As he looks forward to his retirement, Mark is planning to spend his time out boating on Lough Erne, and potentially playing some golf.

Mark Curry with his son Sean Paul and nephew Dwayne Phair pictured in New South Wales.

“I’m just going to try and have an easy life. Choose my own times to do things and perhaps a few holidays here and there,” he said, adding: “But I’m apprehensive about retiring as well.

“When you left school 50 years ago and you’ve always worked, and now suddenly a long-term job of 38 and a half years is coming to an end, you sort of think to yourself, what is the future, but that’s just another avenue I’ll have to look down.

“The good thing about the job is that patients always remember your compassion, empathy and kindness.

“Because of this I’ve always enjoyed going to work, even after all the traumas,” he said.