Creeslough rescue digger driver speaks publicly for the first time in new TG4 current affairs programme

Henry Gallagher, 47, from Treantagh, near Letterkenny, Co Donegal, reveals how he was spurred on to recover the bodies by the sight of grieving relatives in his rear view mirrors.

Speaking on Iniúchadh TG4 - An Craoslach, which will be broadcast on February 8, Mr Gallagher said: “You just see a river of high vis vests (behind me) and I know that among that, there are families waiting on news. The only way that they are going to get the news of a loved one being taken out, is for me to get in.

“I wanted them out. I would have stayed in that digger for ages after that just until I got the bodies out,” he said.

Mr Gallagher remained in the cab of his excavator for 24 hours removing rubble from the collapsed building until the last body of 10, that of 14-year-old Leona Harper was recovered. The teenager’s mother Donna Harper singled Mr Gallagher out for praise at her daughter’s funeral.

He added: “I’ve heard stories of people running in to the building, people bringing other people out of the building. They were taking people out and they were crying (and) they were screaming. Any person we took out, wasn’t crying or screaming.”

Lorry driver Colin Kilpatrick from Raphoe was among the first rescuers at the garage forecourt where he managed to help free one of the injured by using a car jack to lift concrete slabs.

“People got out and people didn’t get out, but what we done, worked,” he said.

The documentary investigates how locals from the Donegal village came together in the immediate aftermath of the explosion to pick through the rubble of Lafferty’s garage to rescue their neighbours before the emergency services arrived.

Ten people lost their lives and eight were injured in the explosion at Lafferty’s supermarket in Creeslough on October 7, 2022.

The dead were five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe and her dad Robert Garwe, 50, Catherine O'Donnell, 39, and her son James Monaghan, 13.

Leona Harper, 14, Jessica Gallagher, 24, James O'Flaherty, 48, Martin McGill, 49, Martina Martin, 49, and Hugh Kelly, 59, also lost their lives.

The Gardaí are still investigating the cause of the blast. A gas explosion remains a major line of inquiry.

The series is presented by award-winning Belfast-based investigative journalist Kevin Magee.

Kevin said: “At the time of tragic event in Creeslough, we heard about the extraordinary bravery and courage of the first wave of rescuers, local people who ran to help their trapped neighbours before the emergency services got there. This programme gives the ordinary people who helped a voice and hears in their own words the extraordinary things they did, often at great danger to themselves in the face of appalling adversity.”

Iniúchadh TG4 airs on TG4 on Wednesday, February 8 at 9:30pm and will also be available to view worldwide on the TG4 Player.