TOMMY McKearney has described how starvation ravaged him physically as he neared death during the 1980 hunger strike.
Doctors told the 28-year-old that he had just 24 to 48 hours to live when Brendan Hughes called off the fast to save the life of fellow striker Sean McKenna.
As the days of the first hunger strike rolled on through the autumn and early winter months of 1980, Mr McKearney and his fellow protesters were eventually transferred to the H-Block hospital wing.
"What I found was that from the early days I suffered," Mr McKearney recalled.
"Dispel any thoughts that after a couple or three days people don't feel hunger - I felt it for many of the days until I got very ill.
"The first feeling is coldness and it's very difficult to keep warm.
"We did drink water and a small pinch of salt every day and tried to take as much water as possible."
Mr McKearney said starvation eventually started to take its toll.
"I held up reasonably for about 40 days although I started to feel tired, and weak of course, as muscles and energy levels went down.
"It was about 45 days I declined rapidly, the effects of hunger and starvation, that my body started eventually to recognise the impact.
"I think it was about 45 days that my eyesight became affected."
In the final days of protest he was drifting out of consciousness.
The prominent republican said eventually poisons work through the body as the "circulation starts to break down".
"The pain starts to seep through from the perimeter, that's the fingers and toes, and starts to seep in towards the wrists, ankles," he said.
"The theory is that eventually it's like pins and needles in the extremities and they reckon that when eventually it merges in the middle that's a signal that life is practically extinct.
"Those are the effects and in the last three or four days I was drifting into consciousness and unconsciousness.
"I wasn't really altogether aware of where I was or what was happening to me.
"I was occasionally having nightmares would be the best way to put it."
Mr McKearney said he feels fortunate to have survived.
"I am 68 years of age and I have had 40 years, I can't complain," he said.
"I have been fortunate in comparison to others.
"I have been very fortunate that I did recover.
"Occasionally I might have a small difficulty with my eyesight - what they call the optic motor nerve, which controls the movement of you eyes.
"They largely recovered but every now and again sometimes I just feel a flicker with my eyesight but apart from that I have to say I have been very, very fortunate to make what seems to be a complete recovery."
