He didn't moan or cry out... then it hit me. He had died

Trainee reporter Ian Croson headed to the scene to cover the story and instead found himself helping with the rescue effort. Ian is now chief sub-editor of the Evening Telegraph.

FOUR of us strained to carry each corner of the blanket. The man inside it was curled up but I could tell he was about 6ft and well built. One of his legs was clearly broken – halfway down his shin it simply turned back on itself. There didn't seem to be much blood.

We struggled to keep our feet as we carried him down the muddy embankment and each of us slipped occasionally as we struggled to carry his body. He looked like a young man, probably in his mid-20s and not much older than me. He didn't moan or cry out. And then it hit me. He had died.

As we reached the bottom of the embankment, we carefully placed him down and then climbed back up.

This time I was told to help carry a woman on a stretcher. She seemed quite young, too, probably in her mid to late 20s. She was alive but seriously injured. She had a gash running from where her forehead met her dark hair down to just above her nose. It looked deep.

That was not her only injury. Six of us were told to carry the stretcher and under no circumstances were we allowed to slip. We were told she may have spinal damage and the slightest jolt could worsen her condition. Slowly, carefully, tiny steps, and with the medics at the front, we shuffled back diagonally down the slope to the A453. It was perhaps 50 feet to the bottom and a waiting ambulance but it felt like a mile.

I left the doctors treating her and headed back up again to see if there was anything more I could do. I still had not seen the wreck of the plane.

So began my experience of the night a 737 came down on the M1. I was a young reporter of just 21. After hearing of the crash, a photographer friend had called me and we headed off to try to get close.

Deciding the M1 would be out of bounds, we drove down the A453. The row of ambulances betrayed the location of the crash site. We parked the car on the verge and headed up the embankment. And that's when I stopped being a reporter and became just another pair of hands ready to help.

There was no taped-off area, nothing to stop you walking right up to the plane. The first part I saw was the nose. I could see right into the cockpit where emergency workers were trying to free the pilot.

The aircraft had broken into three and sat on its belly on the western embankment of the M1. There was a yawning gap between the front and middle sections, where the rows of passenger seats and cabin debris were clearly visible, but the tail section looked the worst – it had broken away and was pointing upwards into the sky.

There were still a few passengers who were trapped. I remember one man at the back of the tail section where people appeared to be working to free him. His screams made your blood run cold. A few years later, I saw a seating plan of where people on the plane died. I was relieved to discover he had survived.

There are many more things I remember about that night, the row of bodies in the makeshift morgue, the overpowering smell of aircraft fuel and the endless row of ambulances, testament to the fact that 47 people lost their lives.