A witness at the Bloody Sunday inquiry said he was a chronic alcoholic "but my memory of that day will never go away".
Mr Peter Gallagher's comments came when asked if the trauma he experienced on Bloody Sunday could have affected his recollection of events.
"I cannot remember what happened on a film last night, but I can remember what happened that day," he said. "It is a nightmare that keeps recurring."
Mr Gallagher described witnessing a youth, Jackie Duddy, being shot in the back. "He spun like a ballerina. He swivelled round, and his chest just exploded with blood." Mr Gallagher also described taking shelter behind a gable wall. More people arrived, and the force of the crowd pushed a woman beside him into the open, where she was shot in the thigh and fell to the ground. He now knew this woman to have been the late Mrs Peggy Deery. [Mrs Deery survived her wounds but has since died.]
Mr Gallagher said he had been reflecting on this in recent months, in view of a television programme called The Weakest Link. "I was the weakest link," he said. "I actually physically pushed her off the wall into open ground . . . I have only reflected on this in the last couple of months, how close I was to being pushed into open ground."
The inquiry continues today.