Omagh bomb survivor “I thought I’d been in a car accident”
Donna Marie McGillion suffered life changing injuries in the car bomb
Last updated 9th Aug 2018
One of the most seriously injured survivors of the Omagh bomb has told Downtown Cool FM she thought she had been in a car accident when she woke up from a coma.
42-year-old Donna Marie McGillion suffered life-changing injuries in the Real IRA car bomb on August 15 1998.
The Omagh woman was just 22 and was due to get married a week later.
Donna Marie says that day changed her world forever:
“I don’t really have much memory of that day or after that because I went unconscious straight away and then I was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital where I had 65% third degree burns all over my body, along with lung damage and shrapnel wounds.
“I have pain every day and that’s something you just have to learn to live with.
“I have shrapnel still in my body and it moves and it knocks me off my feet so in terms of medically, every day the Omagh bomb is still impacting me.”
Donna Marie was in the town shopping for shoes for her flower girl, she was just yards away from the 500-pound bomb when it exploded.
The mum of two spent over six weeks in a coma, was given the last rites and doctors said she only had a 20% chance of survival.
Despite her slim chances, she pulled through and said she never suspected she had been caught up in the worst atrocity of the troubles:
“I came out of the coma and I was looking around me and I knew I was in a lot of pain and I just kept assuming it was an accident.
“I was lying in the bed and I heard a news bulletin and I just went ‘oh my god’ I knew it had to be the bomb.”
Donna Marie’s face was severely burned and scarred in the attack and she was forced to wear a mask to allow her wounds to heal.
She recalled the day she looked at her unrecognisable face for the first time:
“Gary my husband would have come up and chatted to me and everything was normal, it’s as if it didn’t matter.
“It was only then as I started to get a little bit better I thought right I need to have a look at this, plus it was very sore and it was really, really stingy.
“The nurse was there and the psychologist was there actually as well and then they gave me the mirror and I was just like right ok.”
Donna Marie underwent a slow and painful recovery but seven months later she finally married her then fiancé Gary.
She said she was determined to keep everything the same as she had originally planned before the bomb:
“Everybody was amazing, even the police, we had a fear because at that time there was a lot of bomb warnings being rung in.
“They were amazing they searched everything and put my mind at ease.
“When I got out at the chapel in town, there was a massive crowd and they gave a big round of applause and it was quite emotional.
“Then I got to the altar and I was like we’ve actually made, we’re actually here, we’ve done it now seven months on.
“Now we did have that sadness, it was a mighty day but it was tinged with a wee bit of sadness but we got through it.”
The 42-year-old said she has attended a few of the memorial services over the years but as Northern Ireland prepares to mark twenty years on from the atrocity, Donna Marie said for her every day is a reminder:
“There’s never, ever a day goes by that I don’t reflect and remember those that walked with us in town that day and didn’t quite make it home to their families.
“There is times when you go why me, why did I have to be there?
“Why did this happen and how did this happen? Those are two questions that are still there today, how and why and nobody can answer them and no matter what race or creed or religion you are the questions are still the same with no answers.”
The dissident republican group the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the bomb but no one has ever been convicted.
Donna Marie says she struggled to forgive the perpetrators:
“For the people that planted the bomb in Omagh I feel nothing for them at all, I try not to give them any thought at all.
“Now I did battle with this because you’re taught to forgive and I did go through all of that, I don’t know if I can forgive them.
“But as time went on and life went on I just thought I can’t get caught up in that, I refuse to let them win and I refuse to let them get me down.
“There’s no answers, I do get angry but I always stop because if I don’t stop and I let anger in, then I just get anger and then I get bitter and I suffer that and then my kids suffer that.
“I could be another victim but then I got angry to the point where they’re not going to ruin my life…they’ve distorted it slightly but they weren’t going to ruin it.”
She told Downtown Cool FM despite the trauma she suffered as a result of her horrific injuries, she is determined to remain positive:
“I knew that it was up to me, I had to get on with it because if I didn’t I would have become another victim and I didn’t want to be that, I wanted to be a survivor.
“I’m always very thankful that I’m here because I shouldn’t be here but I am and I’m able to carry on with life.”
The terrorist attack came just four months after the Good Friday Agreement was signed.
As the current Stormont impasse rumbles on, Donna Marie urged politicians here to put their differences aside for the sake of the peace process:
“In terms of our own politicians I think coming up to the twentieth anniversary then they need to reflect on what happened because bear in mind we had peace when the Omagh bomb happened.
“I just think that they need to take that extra step to go to the next stage and give us the political stability that we need here.
“If Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley could do it and they were so stubborn at times, then I really don’t see why Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster can’t, they know what they need to do.”