Clutha crash witness Jim Murphy still wonders: 'Did I do enough?'

Former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has described his guilt at feeling he could have done more to help the victims of the Clutha disaster.

Mr Murphy was parking near the Glasgow pub moments after a police helicopter crashed into its roof on 29 November 2013.

The ex-Scottish Secretary, who was on a night out, assisted the injured and aided emergency services at the scene.

He has spoken to the BBC in his first and only interview about the tragedy.

Ten people were killed and 31 others injured in the disaster which happened on a busy Friday night.

The official investigation into the accident concluded it was caused by "fuel starvation" due to incorrect operation of the fuel system.

In an interview for BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme, to be broadcast on Wednesday, Mr Murphy talks to presenter John Beattie about what happened on the night and the lingering effects he still feels a decade later.

At the time he was the Labour MP for East Renfrewshire and a member of the shadow cabinet.

Mr Murphy, a teetotaller, was on a pre-Christmas night out when he was alerted by a passer-by to the helicopter crash.

At first he was told it had come down in the River Clyde.

He recalled: "When I got to the pub I saw people, not a huge number of people but some people, outside the pub and I thought: 'Wonder what's going on there?'

"And it's only at the point I saw something sticking out the roof and realised that the helicopter hadn't crashed into the Clyde but had actually crashed into the top of the pub.

"I think what struck me was it was a very cold night and the scene was really quiet. Bearing in mind what had just happened it was really eerily quiet."

Mr Murphy began helping get people out of the pub, all the while worrying about whether the fuel from the crashed helicopter would cause an explosion.

Debris was blocking the door to the pub as people scrambled to escape.

"Somehow there was a woman that everyone managed to pull out of this space and there was a small sort of human chain that we just passed this woman along," he said.

"I remember putting her on the ground and thinking 'I haven't put her in the recovery position'.

"I felt really irresponsible but by the time I turned around again she was gone so I can only imagine someone else picked her up and took her to a safer spot."

Mr Murphy remembers helping a tall man with a "really pretty awful head wound" and using the only liquid available at the scene to clear his injury - beer which had been left undrunk at the bar.

He admitted: "The abiding memory I have is: 'Did you do enough? Could you have done more?'

"But I have no first aid qualifications and these are the benefits of thinking a decade later rather than in the spontaneous seconds that you have on the night."

Mr Murphy was on the scene for about an hour on the night and stepped back once the emergency services were in place.

He also spoke to the media, praising the first responders and their work.

When asked by a reporter about the blood on his shirt he replied: "It's not mine".

Ten years on, he will not describe the scenes which were witnessed by him and the others who were there.

"On the night I didn't know I had blood over me until I was asked because you are trying to concentrate on other people," he said.

"Did I see some awful things? Yes. But on the night and now I haven't spoken about them because these are other people's relatives and other people don't need to know what I saw and thought about their badly injured loved ones."

Looking back a decade on from that night in 2013, he speaks of his reluctance to detract from those who were most affected by the Clutha crash.

Mr Murphy said: "This is the first, this is the only interview I have given about that night, because the people who should speak about this are the survivors and the families of those who lost a loved one.

"But I thought that 10 years later I perhaps should just do one single interview.

"And even now I want to emphasise that there was a group of other people who did exactly as I did, which was run towards trouble."

The former politician admits to thinking about the tragedy a lot, especially the people who lost their lives and were injured.

"I think about why didn't I do more? I think about why didn't I climb onto the roof of the pub and try and help people who obviously would still have been in the helicopter," he said.

"I think, reflecting back, my abiding emotion would be: 'You should have done more'.

"I drive past the pub and whenever I do that's what I think. What more should I have done?"

You can hear the interview with Jim Murphy on Drivetime with John Beattie from 16:00 on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds.