Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Losing wife in Omagh bomb left me suicidal
20 years on and pain of victim is still raw
A MAN who lost his wife in the Omagh bomb has spoken about the traumatic aftermath which almost led to him taking his own life.
Kevin Skelton and his family had been shopping in the Co Tyrone town on August 15, 1998, when the device exploded.
His wife Philomena died in the blast and in the immediate aftermath he believed he had also lost his three daughters.
Mr Skelton said: “I remember it as if it was yesterday. We were looking for brown shoes for Shauna, then across the street into SD Kells, that’s where I left my wife and girls and went into Mr Gee’s.
“As I turned to come out again, that’s when the bomb went off, the window was sucked out and I walked out after it.
“I went in what was left of Kells’ window and found her [Philomena] lying face down in the rubble.
“I thought my daughter was buried underneath her because she had been standing with her mother when I left.
“I couldn’t find Tracy, I couldn’t find Shauna and I couldn’t find Paula. I thought they were all gone.
“When I lifted Mena’s arm and dropped it, I knew that was it, but the next time I ran back in again Tracy was beside her mother on her knees.
“She’d been further down the shop and got knocked out, but someone had taken Shauna away to the hospital and Paula was on down near the corner. The one thing I will never ever get rid of until the day I close my two eyes was the smell of burning flesh and the cries of people in pain.
“No human being should have to see that. The chat about Catholic and Protestant, blood is all the one colour running down the street – and for what? Absolutely nothing.”
The Real IRA bomb killed 29 people, including a woman who was pregnant with twins, and hundreds were injured. A memorial event will take place at the site of the bomb today at the exact hour it detonated 20 years earlier. Mr Skelton, who has since remarried and runs victims’ group Families Moving On, added the days after the bomb were a blur. He said: “They tell you about counsellors, what a load of cobblers, we had nobody. The only ones I had was my mum and my dad. They were always there and only for them, my mum in particular, I wouldn’t be here today.” The turning point came when Mr Skelton almost took his own life and he revealed the thought of the impact his death would have on his mother made him stop.
He added: “This feels selfish, that it wasn’t my children that stopped me, it was what it would do to my mother. “Then I got up the next morning and took the gun back into the gun shop and gave the permit back to the police.”
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