Omagh police shooting: 'John stumbled and staggered 200m after attack'

Tim Shiels, head coach with Omagh Harriers athletics club

Det Ch Insp John Caldwell "stumbled and staggered" about 200 metres to get help after he was shot, a witness has said.

The senior police officer is critically ill after the shooting in the car park of a sports complex in Omagh on Wednesday evening.

Tim Shiels, the head coach at the Omagh Harriers athletics club, said some of the club's members were the first to administer first aid to the detective.

Five men have been arrested as part of the attempted murder investigation.

Mr Shiels told BBC News NI: "John had been shot on the car park and then had stumbled and staggered his way up to the [running] track and our members were actually doing their cooldown.

"As John was stumbling up, [members] ran to him. They administered first aid to him very lovingly and very graciously got ambulances."

Det Ch Insp John Caldwell has been involved in high-profile investigations

He said that as more people arrived at the scene, Det Ch Insp Caldwell was provided with further help while emergency services arrived.

"Thank God that he's still with us and that his family have a father, that his wife has a husband, that we're not actually mourning the loss of us very significant member of our community today," Mr Shiels added.

Mr Shiels said the memory of Wednesday evening's events would stay with members of the Omagh Harriers "for a lifetime".

"The general consensus is one of just sadness and frustration," he said.

"I suppose for most of the people in the club that I've spoken to you over the last 24 hours it unearthed and opened a lot of emotional wounds from the legacy of the bomb."

Twenty-nine people died following a bomb attack in Omagh on 15 August 1998. It was the biggest single atrocity in the Troubles.

The shooting has also had an impact on children in the town.

Mr Shiels said his 12-year-old daughter, who was not at the scene during the shooting, has expressed concern about him returning to the sports complex.

"For children to try and comprehend the magnitude and the severity of something like this is extremely difficult," he said.