4/19/07 --
OKC, OK - Today marks the 12
th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.
As we all know, on that morning, Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder van loaded with explosives in front of the
Murrah building. In a cowardly act, McVeigh calmly walked away as the van detonated, killing 168 men, women and children.
April 19
th means many things to many people.
For me, it marks one of those few instances where I had one of those "Do you remember where you were when..." moments that last a lifetime.
So far in my lifetime I vividly remember what I was doing when the
Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, the terrorism
attacks of 9/11, and of course the
Oklahoma City Bombing.
That morning started off like any other. At the time I worked as a marketing manager for
The Children's Hospital of Oklahoma and The University Hospital (
OU Medical Center).
I was on the 6
th floor in my department's reception area when we all heard a "boom" and the building seemed to shake slightly.
We knew cranes were placing equipment onto the roof of the hospital, so naturally we thought something fell.
We went to the window and instinctively looked down. Then, almost in sync, we all slowly looked up to see a large mushroom type cloud billowing from downtown Oklahoma City, maybe 1.5 miles away.
Within minutes the hospital went "code black," meaning we were locked down and in the middle of a large scale medical emergency and to prepare for mass causalities.
We had often trained for such a situation, but we honestly never thought the practice would come into play. Janitors became orderlies, cafeterias were cleared for triage, and medical helicopters were launched and poised to transport.
For our department (marketing and public relations) it meant we broke out the
walkie-talkies and dispersed among the vast medical complex.
Our job in these situations was to dispense information to the media, protect
patient's privacy from the media and to keep administration and security apprised of the situation.
I was dispatched to the Children's Hospital emergency room entrance.
I remember initial reports were that a bomb had exploded at the county or federal court house. My father is an attorney and I knew he might be downtown at the time. Additionally, my mother was an administrator for the
Oklahoma City Indian Clinic that was located downtown.
Cell phone accessibility at the time had ground to a halt. It seemed the entire city was trying to dial out or receive a call at the same time.
Eventually I got through to my mother and she assured me that she and my father were fine and that she had sent their medical staff to the bombing scene to offer assistance.
The Children's E.R. was nothing short of organized chaos. While the flood of wounded never materialized, there were patients arriving via ambulance, private car, helicopter, police cruiser and even city buses.
In addition, medical supplies were being loaded into anything that could carry them and then transported downtown.
I remember the silence and then anguish when a call came in for amputation kits to be taken immediately to the scene.
While that initial day was a hurried
blurr, the weeks that followed were nothing less than exhaustive.
Our small staff began working 12 hour shifts, 24-hours a day, to
accomodate media and family requests from across the globe.
In a future blog I will share some of the stories, pictures and videos from the experience that day and the weeks and months that followed.
I still remember that surreal feeling when I first saw the damage done to the
Murrah Building.
Twelve years later a memorial has been erected where so many died that day. Like the memorial in Dallas, honoring the
assassination of President Kennedy, you will find individuals and groups at the
Oklahoma City National Memorial 24-hours a day, rain or shine.
Resources:
- Oklahoma National Memorial website.
- YouTube video (media coverage the day of the bombing).
- Another YouTube video.
- Another YouTube video (the memorial).
- Wikipedia
