"IT was the day that never ended" is how Geordie Brown remembers October 23, 1993.
It was also the day his life would change forever. The day that would have a lasting impact, not just on him but on his family and the community he loved.
Mr Brown had just parked his car to go a nearby shop when the Shankill bomb exploded. Confusion reigned as a cloud of thick dust engulfed everyone and everything.
Having checked his then wife and young twins were uninjured he ran towards the carnage, at first thinking the target was a nearby bar, where he knew members of his family would be following the funeral of an uncle earlier that day.
"There was nothing to see it was just an ash cloud", he recalls.
"My first thought was for my family, I started making my way into the ash cloud, totally disorientated, I couldn't see a thing.
"I saw this black taxi totally mangled. Shapes and figures started to appear, I realised it wasn't the bar and at least knew my family were safe. But all I could hear was screaming and crying.
"The next three or four hours was just spent digging people out of the rubble, friends, people I'd grown up with. It was pandemonium".
Along with other locals, he helped dig through the rubble until the first responders arrived.
"Police came, fire brigade came, ambulances came but until that time we were just men, digging with our hands.
"Then the first body came out add the second body. I was afraid of standing on people, it was surreal. I could be there right now.
"I can actually taste the ash, I would wake up in the middle of the night choking, feeling I was choking on ash, that went on for years and years.
"It was a day that never ended, I refused to leave, there was policemen standing with us pulling bricks out.
"They thought there was another bomb nearby and they told us to evacuate, but not a man moved. We all just thought 'well if there is a bomb there is but there are people trapped here and we're not moving'.
"We had maybe four people out and then there would be shouts for quiet, you would hear a voice or a faint cry from the rubble.
"I remember them bringing out a body, but it wasn't a body and at that point ... well it was just a realisation of what had happened."
Among the people who Geordie helped pulled out of the rubble and, unknown to him, was one of the IRA bombers Sean Kelly.
"There was this wee guy from the Shankill, a bit of a character, everyone knew him, in the middle of digging I found this person, his face was hanging off and I thought it was him.
"I got a hold of his face and held it together as best as I could and got him into the ambulance and went back to digging."
Later that night when police came to speak to him, to take a witness statement, they told him the person he had actually rescued was one of the bombers.
"I just cried, sobbed really, it was hard to process.
"At one stage I looked down and my hands were ripped to pieces, I went and got my hands bandaged and went straight back to it.
"I didn't leave until there was no one left. I'm not trying to sound like some kind of hero, everyone stayed we all stayed until we knew.
"I went to the hospital, I didn't want to go and I can't remember getting there, it was just a war zone.
"My hands were full of metal shards, a nurse picked them out."
Mr Brown recalls how his parents arrived at the hospital to take him home.
"That was the first time I broke down, I just fell into my da's arms and cried, I kept saying 'da look what they've done, look what the b******s have done'."
After the events of that day Mr Brown says he struggled with panic attacks and even found living on the Shankill Road, a place he had loved and where all his family lived, too difficult to bear.
"We moved to Bangor, I just couldn't live on the Shankill, I felt selfish for that, selfish for taking my two kids away from my da. They were his life, he doted on them.
"I tried my best to get on, I think I did a good job of hiding it from most people, but the anxiety attacks were crippling, I constantly relive it, I can smell it, I can taste it, I can hear it".
Mr Brown says counselling has helped with his post traumatic stress and he's slowly coming to terms with his illness.
"Taking a case wasn't easy for me, I know there are some people who might criticise me for it, but I want the truth, we shouldn't hide from finding that out," he added.
