The Omagh Bombing Inquiry is examining whether the single worst atrocity of the Troubles could have been prevented
Twenty-nine people, including a woman expecting twins, were murdered in the Real IRA attack on 15 August 1998
This is the fourth week of hearings
Edited by Conor Neeson. Warning: This page contains distressing details
He says that nobody could go through the experience of the bombing without being changed.
"Witnessing inhumanity like that first hand certainly affected me in a very profound way."
He adds he "can't even begin to think" what it was like for those injured or families of the dead.
He says he will do everything he can to make sure it never happens again.
"We did everything we could to try and save and preserve the life of the innocent people of Omagh on that day," he says.
Speaking of those who left the bomb, Sup Haslett says: "The warnings they gave were vague, and perhaps deliberately so."
"The terrorists who planned the operation and who planted the bomb and walked away were callously reckless to the consequences of their actions," he adds.
"The blame can only lie with those who deliberately left a car bomb in the centre of a busy market town on a Saturday afternoon just before the start of a new school term."
He says that he believes that the intended purpose of the position of the bomb on Market Street was to target police officers.
On his drive home, Sup Haslett remembers hearing radio coverage.
He recalls the number of dead reported was far short of the number of bodies that he had just left in the mortuary.
When he got home, his girlfriend at the time had driven from Carrickfergus to be with him.
He recalls the army chaplain gathering the people in the barracks in a circle to "recite a very quiet and very emotional rendition of the Lord's Prayer".
He says he nearly choked on the line "deliver us from evil".
"Fernando's death more than anything else I witnessed that day has had the most profound and lasting affect on me," he says.
"He was just a wee innocent boy, on his holidays, with his pen knife in his pocket, and he was murdered for a political cause by people of insignificance."
For years after the bomb, he says he couldn't even look at a Swiss army knife without the "memory of Fernando overwhelming" him.
He says while some of the other viitms had "horrible wounds", Fernando didn't have a mark on him.
He says he couldn't understand how he died.
He says he found out after that a small piece of shrapnel entered behind his left ear and killed him instantly.
This was Fernando Blasco Baselga, he tells the Inquiry.
Sup Haslett described this as the embodiment and personification of the innocence that was lost as a result of the Omagh bombing.
He says the second victim that he examined was a "male child" who looked about 11 or 12.
He says the boy had a "Mediterranean complexion" and was wearing a green military type t-shirt, blue jeans, brown boots, and white socks.
He says the "only possession this beautiful wee boy had on him was a small red swiss army knife".
The first victim who he had brought to the mortuary, who was numbered 12, was a female of "an age which I could not determine".
She had a number of pieces of gold jewellery.
"I now know this lady to of been Philomena Skelton," he says.
Sup Haslett says that once he arrived at the barracks all the bodies were laid out.
This he says was a "profound and distressing sight".
"I think that this was the first time of the enormity of what had happened actually struck me."
He says he was then told to search the victims for identification or property.
The bodies and body parts had been numbered consecutively from 1 - 21.
Sup Haslett was informed that they needed to be moved to the barracks where a temporary mortuary was being set up.
Officers were allocated a number of bodies to transport from the scene to the mortuary.
He was allocated the bodies numbered 12, and 13. He placed them in an ambulance.
He says that when the alleyway- Market Street Arcade - was full, they moved bodies to Moira's shop.
He says that a total of 20 bodies and a body part lay in the shop and the alley.
He recalls that his Sergeant then instructed that the dead be moved to an army barracks.
He says: "As the dead started to accumulate, we started marking them with torn up bits of paper, and a biro pen.
"Looking back, this sounds awful and terribly impersonal, but it was the only way we could keep an accurate count of those who had died and who we had recovered.
"There was so many dead that I cant remember accurately where each was found - the nature of their injuries or how they were clothed."
He says he assisted in the removal of the first four bodies into the alleyway after they were pronounced dead.
He adds that he removed two from the flow of water caused by a burst mains.
He says that officers were aware of the gathering press and that the dead were lying where they fell in the middle of the road.
In an effort to "respect the dignity of those who had been lost" officers gathered bodies into an alleyway.
Sup Haslett says upon hearing the news of the bomb his parents were "up the wall with worry" and phoned the RUC station in Coleraine from a phone box.
A female officer told them that there had been casualties but she was not certain if any had been police officers.
"The officer told my mum that all she could do, was to pray," he adds.
Sup Haslett says he wanted to get word to his parents that he was ok.
He says telephone lines were down in most premises.
He says there was a short queue of police waiting for a phone that was working in an electrical shop.
He says he reached his aunt after first trying his parents.
He says this was probably the one time that his aunt heard him swear.
Sup Haslett proceeded to go between premises which were badly damaged to try and find any remaining injured.
He says it soon became clear that the mission had changed from "the rescue of the injured to the recovery of the dead".