A former firefighter has described seeing bodies piled high on top of each other inside one of the toilets of the Stardust nightclub in Dublin and said he did not know if they were alive or dead.
Noel Keegan was based at Tara Street Station at the time and had ten years of experience in the fire brigade as a then 30-year-old.
He was giving evidence at the inquests into the deaths of the 48 people in the 1981 nightclub fire in Artane.
The court heard how he and colleagues left for the scene at 1.44am and said en route they were informed it was a "district call" which meant that people or property were in danger. He arrived at the scene at 1.55am.
The inquests heard that he said on arrival the fire was burning fiercely and that about 15 minutes later it was under control.
When he got to the scene, he searched for a fire hydrant along the main road.
He said he saw one that was already in use and crossed the road to look for another one but was hindered by parked cars.
Mr Keegan then returned to the club and took part in the search.
Once inside, he said he heard someone saying "there are bodies in here" and went into the toilets which were located near Exits 5 and 6.
In his 1981 garda statement, which was read into the record today, he said: "I found six to eight bodies piled up on top of each other. We carried them out as fast as we could because we did not know if they were alive or dead."
"I would hope there were some alive, but I don't know," he told the court today.
Des Fahy, KC, thanked him on behalf of the families of the victims for all of his efforts on the night.
The court also heard how he recovered a body outside the toilets that was "tragically charred beyond recognition" and that he took a body from inside Exit 6 and that the "body was still on fire".
The inquests also heard from a retired garda who was among the first emergency responders on the scene.
Matthew Quinn was 33 at the time and had been a member of An Garda Síochána for 11 years.
He had been in a patrol car in Santry Village when he received a call telling of the fire at the nightclub.
They arrived on the scene three minutes later at around 1.50am.
He parked near the outside of the front of the building and stayed with the car as his colleague approached the premises.
The inquests heard how he was en route to the club from some distance away and "the whole sky was lit up red or orange".
He said outside the club there was "pure panic" and said people were screaming and shouting.
"All I remember was seeing the injured and what went through my heard was to get them to hospital as soon as possible," he told the court. "Transport was the big problem," he said.
He told the court how a taxi driver approached him and asked if was there anything he could do to help.
Mr Quinn said he told him to get him a "fleet of cars".
He said the taxi drivers "were absolutely brilliant" and came "from all sides of the city" to ferry the injured to hospital.
He told the court how he "took it upon myself" to put some of those injured into his own patrol car and take them to the Mater Hospital.
He described putting one person into the front seat and two into the back.
Mr Quinn said: "I went to put a third person in (the back) but because they couldn't touch one another, they were screeching, I had to get that person to leave."
He also described their injuries and said: "The blisters that were on their arms were massive. Some of them had burst and the skin…had fallen down over their fingers…like you’d peel a banana. It was terrible. Hair was burnt,’ he told the court.
When he returned back to the scene from the Mater Hospital, he said all the emergency services were there.
He then ferried three more of the injured to the hospital and after that provided an escort to Jervis St Hospital.
Des Fahy also thanked Mr Quinn for his work on the night on behalf of the families of the victims.
The inquests continue tomorrow on what will be day 90 of the proceedings.
