Notes from Leavenworth Federal Prison “As long as I live, I will never forget that day. I remember it happened on a Wednesday; it was April 19, 1995. I had just driven a couple of blocks from my house and had stopped at a gas station to use their pay phone. I had an appointment with the Turning Point Counseling Center and needed to let them know I was running late for my nine o’clock meeting. They had thanked me for calling but said I needed to hurry. I recall hanging up the phone and walking to the International Scout, which I had borrowed from a friend. Just as I got back in the car, I heard a huge explosion and felt the ground and my insides shake furiously. I had never experienced anything like it, but I instinctively knew something terrible and very bad had happened in Oklahoma City. As I headed for my appointment, I turned on the car radio and within minutes I heard the Murrah Federal Building had just blown up and collapsed. My first thought was there would be mass casualties and because of my training as an E.M.T. I could help. I immediately turned the Scout around and drove back towards downtown. I was still many blocks from the bomb site when I encountered a street blocked off by a wooden barricade with police officers and others keeping traffic moving and off that street. Right away I recognized one of the FBI agents manning the barricade. He had arrested me twenty days earlier, his name was Terry O’Brien and he wanted to know what I was doing there and if I was okay. I was yelling and swearing-trying to ask him what had happened. I found myself stuttering, trying to get the words out to tell him I was an E.M.T. and I wanted to help. It was absolute pandemonium with most everyone shouting and screaming and crying, but agent O’Brien understood what I was trying to say. He allowed my car to enter and told me to go ahead and do whatever I could to help the casualties and paramedics. I was able to get a little closer but then had to park and run the remaining blocks to the bombed out building. It’s impossible for me to put into words or to describe what I saw and witnessed when I reached what was left of the bombed out building. People were running in every direction, drenched in blood and screaming hysterically not fully realizing what had happened to them. Fire trucks and ambulances were everywhere, and rescue workers were trying desperately to find and save survivors. The parking lots were full of charred remains of automobiles and debris from the building was so deep that I couldn’t tell where the sidewalk began, and the street ended. Every building within several blocks had most of their windows shattered and blown away. It reminded me of the photographs I had seen of what was left of Nagasaki after our country dropped the Atomic Bomb. Right away I began helping by looking for survivors, carrying stretchers, placing collars on those with possible cervical spine fractures, checking people for shock and pulses and respirations. I comforted those who had been injured and were frightened until a paramedic could get to them. Like I said, I will never forget that day or what I witnessed. I saw people torn apart with mutilated faces and missing hands and arms and legs. I saw the fear of death in the eyes of everyone I encountered. We were all in a state of disbelief and shock. It was total chaos and the most overwhelming situation of my life. As I did what I could for the survivors in the rubble, I had lost my sense of direction. I remember noticing several of the FBI agents looking at me strange with what seemed to be a rage in their eyes. Suddenly, the words Agent O’Brien had spoken to me just one week prior rang through my head. “Bryan, you wouldn’t be detonating a bomb back there would you?” Over and over O’Brien’s words echoed through my mind as I thought about the past few weeks and the helicopters, the people following me, the people outside my home and my attorney treating me like a convicted criminal. Suddenly, I had realized they must think I had something to do with the bombing. I remember feeling as though I was losing my mind. I had gone there to help, and I didn’t understand how anyone could possibly think I could have been involved with that horrible, despicable crime. The next thing I remember, I was nearly in the middle of what used to be the Federal Building when someone yelled “We found another bomb!” People began running from another blast that would never happen, and I had joined them, running with no idea where to go that would be safe. I ran and kept running. I couldn’t remember where I had parked the Scout. I felt as though my head was going to explode. Finally after running many blocks, I waved down a car that was passing by and asked them to take me home.” Bryan Killingsworth 1997
|