Oklahoma City bombing survivors share their stories of the aftermath

The Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, left 168 dead. Countless survivors were left to pick up the pieces, but they have carried on with resilience toward healing.

The Oklahoman has compiled some of their stories, which was originally published in 2015 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the event.

'Whatever it was, it was awfully cruel'

Jim Hargrove, who works in the office of the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said he and his co-workers tied curtains together to escape from their offices in the southeast corner of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building's third floor.

"I was in the building when it happened. It just fell on my head," Hargrove said.

"The office to the right of me and an office to the left of me, and (after the explosion) there was just nothing there. It was bare," Hargrove said.

"I could see my car out on the parking lot, on fire. " After determining his employees were safe, Hargrove still heard the voice of someone in distress.

It turned out "someone fell from the seventh floor to the third floor, but we were able to get him out," Hargrove said. He said the workers lowered themselves through windows, using curtains they had tied together. Hargrove and co-worker Sam Patterson said they were puzzled by the blast. "I can't believe it. Whatever it was, it was awfully cruel," Hargrove said.

'It felt like somebody slammed me in the back of the head with a bat'

"It shook the hell out of the place. I've never seen anything like it in my life." Allen Glass, who was in the Mid-America Tower when the explosion occurred."For just a split second it went black and then the explosion." Laquita Cowan, who was working in the first-floor Social Security office in the Murrah building when the explosion occurred."It felt like somebody slammed me in the back of the head with a bat. We pushed debris to the side to be able to get out. My office was chest-deep in debris." David Harper, who was sitting at a desk in the Journal Record Building the explosion occurred.

More: The names and faces of victims of the Oklahoma City bombing

'I got away pretty lucky, I think'

Michael Albano is one of the lucky ones.Albano, 48, is a hydrologist with the Water Resources Board. He said he was standing away from his windows when the explosion occurred. He was thrown into some panels and a light fixture fell on his head.

Some of his co-workers were not as fortunate. Albano said he has heard that one has died, and another remains in extremely critical condition. Those two had offices on the side of the building next to the federal building.Albano said when he reached his home, he realized his shirt pocket and hair were full of glass.

"First I thought the explosion had to be involved with the water board itself," Albano said. "But when I got out on the street and looked around, I saw what was left of the federal building - it was incredible."There was a lot of panic over there. People were bewildered," Albano said.

'I felt no one could live through anything of that magnitude of damage'

More than once in the past few days, Willie Watson has had time to think about the quirks of fate. The destruction at the building gave him "a sick, sick feeling," Watson said Thursday."I felt no one could live through anything of that magnitude of damage," he said.Rescue workers directed him to the nearest first aid center. As he walked in that direction, Watson spotted his wife coming toward him. After checking many hospitals the Watsons checked Children's Hospital. Yes, the pediatric trauma center had a P.J. on its injured children's list."Let me tell you, that's a sick feeling - to not be able to locate a missing or injured family member," Willie Watson said, as he kept vigil outside the pediatric intensive care unit at Children's Hospital of Oklahoma. Inside the unit, Watson's grandson has been listed in critical condition, with burns over 55 percent of his body and an arm broken in three places. Since Wednesday he has undergone two surgeries, Watson said."He's a strong young man. The next 48 hours are vital. He can't talk to us, but we know he can hear us," P.J.'s grandfather added.

"Every time my wife or I go and talk to him, a tiny little tear comes out of his eye.

"It's a strain, but with the Lord's help I know we'll get through this," Watson said.

'I thank the Lord I wasn't at my desk at the time because that portion of the building is gone'

Capt. Henderson Baker II, U.S. recruiting battalion captain The blast threw Baker from his fourth-floor office in the federal building to the first floor, leaving him with bruises, an injured arm and blood flowing down his face. Baker said, "I thank the Lord I wasn't at my desk at the time because that portion of the building is gone. We were standing talking to each other and all of a sudden ...," Baker said."I didn't know what was going on. I just didn't know what was going on. I just didn't know. It was dark, black and I was falling.I landed on the first floor. I was dazed a minute or two. When I came to, I could see some light and I walked out into Fifth Street (NW 5). " Baker went back inside looking for his co-workers. Six were still missing an hour after the explosion. "One lady had two daughters up there," the captain said. "I found one of her daughters later on. She was dead. I picked her up and handed her to one of the policemen. "

'It blew us out of our chairs... It felt like the world just fell in on us'

Sharon Paulsen, a claims representative for the Social Security Administration Paulsen sat dazed on the curb of NW 5 after the explosion. She said she had been on the first floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building when the bomb exploded. "It blew us out of our chairs," she said. "It felt like the world just fell in on us. One of the fellows dug me out. Another fellow got the door open.Sprinklers were going. There was no warning. It was totally, totally out of the blue. "

More: A timeline of the Oklahoma City bombing

'I had to dig my way out'

Linda Logan, a secretary in the Social Security office Logan said water was rising on the floor. "I had to dig my way out," she said. "It was horrible. I feel very fortunate that we got out of the building. "

'We were just trying to get out of there'

Jim Staggs and Vernon Buster, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms The two agents wandered around without any shirts after the explosion. Their slacks were torn and bloody. Staggs said he was talking on the phone on the ninth floor of the federal building when he heard the explosion. "We were just trying to get out of there. The doors were locked. We couldn't get out. We were just trying to find a way out. Debris was everywhere. " Buster said everyone in the building was frantic. Federal agents whose jobs include the investigation of bombings found themselves at ground center of a hellish nightmare. Buster was covered with cuts."I felt the explosion come from my left," he said. "Then there was this force of pressure, and debris started falling and glass flying. "

'Glass hit me in the back of the head and behind the ear'

Mike Grady, president and chief executive officer at the YMCA Grady said doors blew off the hinges in his office. He had severe cuts on his forehead. "We heard the boom and then there was a something like a pressurization. There was glass and ceiling tile. I had no idea what happening, it was just so sudden. I moved here two years ago and you don't expect anything like this in Oklahoma City."Glass hit me in the back of the head and behind the ear. "

'You did not know where to run to get out. It was just frantic.'

Ernie Ross, 47, typesetter for The Journal Record newspaper: The shock wave from the explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building threw Ernie Ross 20 feet into a table across the room. Ross was in the newspaper offices near the nine-story federal building. "The explosion was all you could feel. The windows were all gone and the inside walls collapsed. You did not know where to run to get out. It was just frantic. " Ross, a Vietnam veteran, sustained a crushed nose, facial lacerations and large cuts on his leg. "I never went through anything like this when I was in Vietnam. "

More: Oklahoma City bombing: the attack, the aftermath, and a city's resilience

'The windows blew in, the ceiling fell, everything that was not concrete in the YMCA building went'

Berbe Lovelace, worker in the Oklahoma City Downtown Lions Club office in the YMCA Lovelace had just stepped away from her desk on the second floor of the YMCA when the Murrah building blast blew in the windows of her office. Her desk and chair were covered with shards of glass."The windows blew in, the ceiling fell, everything that was not concrete in the YMCA building went," she said. "It flew me toward the door. Glass cuts go all the way across my face, where the glass blew past me. I did what every normal human being does - I panicked," she said. "I jerked the door open against the ceiling tiles, hobbled down the hall where everybody was screaming and crying, and we made our way down the stairs. It took us only 1 1/2 to 2 minutes to get outside, and there were police cars already there - men in their heavy helmets," she said. "Several of us went back in to help get the 2-year-olds out of the (YMCA) child-care facility. I realized I was bleeding badly, so I went back outside."Parents were coming up to get their children, running, calling the child's name. Strangers walked up and each picked up a child. One father was so panicky, he couldn't see his baby girl, although a man was standing right there holding her. "

'I was cut through the artery into my esophagus'

Polly Nichols, 51, executive director of the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence Nichols knew she was bleeding Wednesday morning, but when she heard gurgling while leaving the Journal Record Building, she thought a pipe had broken. She was the one making the noise. "I was cut through the artery into my esophagus," she said."I wasn't in my office. Unfortunately, I was standing by the window discussing something and something just hit," she said. Through the smoke and haze and outlines of jagged pieces of debris hanging down, she and her office workers called to each other to see if they were all right. She remembers picking up her feet, trying to pick her way out."We made our way down the stairs and I made it down one flight, and then I couldn't even pick up my feet," she said. "This had to be like the World Trade Center. Everybody was coming out. Someone I didn't even know picked me up and carried me the rest of the way."There I was stretched out in the middle of Sixth Street, with everyone's face and they're going, 'Oh, she's in trauma, she's really got to go. ' "I guess this means I've some things I still need to get done, and because so many people didn't survive that makes you want to do it more and better and really help a number of people," she said."I'm probably one of the luckiest people to come through this piece of history. "

"I heard people yelling, 'Get out! Get out!"

Katie Darling, worker for the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education's Guaranteed Student Loan Program, which has offices in the Journal Record Building Wednesday's blast lifted Darling out of her shoes and slammed her into the corner of her desk.Darling had just hit a miskey on her computer, when she heard "this loud ka-BOOM. " She remembers thinking, "Uh-oh, what did I do? " in the instant before being thrown against her desk. Then the ceiling fell in on her second-floor office."I heard people yelling, 'Get out! Get out! '" Darling recalled Thursday from a bed at Presbyterian Hospital. "I thought it was a fire. I left my purse and my shoes behind. I ran for the emergency stairs but they were gone - destroyed. " Then Darling passed out. When she came to, she was outside the building. Dazed and suffering severe abdominal pains, the mother of two made her way to a curbside first-aid station."I'm just grateful to be alive. I thank God that he spared my life," she said. "When I looked at our building, I'm just amazed any of us even got out of there. "

'It was like walking to the edge of a swimming pool'

When the explosion occurred, Dan Webber was seated in his office on the north side of the courthouse, facing the Murrah building. The blast blew in the windows and smashed part of the ceiling. "I thought a wrecking ball had hit my office," Webber recalled. It was only when Webber reached the sidewalk that he realized all the smoke in the air was coming from the building where Joseph's daycare center was.With a coworker, Webber raced across the Murrah's south plaza, which led directly into the building's second floor, heading for the part that housed the daycare center. To Webber's horror, "there was no second floor" inside. "It was like walking to the edge of a swimming pool. The rest of the building was gone. There was just this big pile of gray," he said. "There was no movement in this gray pile. There were no sounds. Eventually, Don Hull, an Oklahoma City policeman, pulled Joseph out of the building's rubble.

For Dan Webber and his wife, Dawn, a full-throated roar from their son, Joseph, right now would probably be a welcome sign. Wires in the jaw of the 20-month-old, blond-haired boy now prevent Joseph from giving a lusty howl - even if he wanted to.

"I was sitting there, and I screamed at my friend, 'What is it?'"

Melissa Erhard and some of her co-workers at The Journal Record Publishing Co. About 9:30 every morning they'd go out on the building's south side, sit on the steps, talk. Melissa and Mickie Bennett had journeyed out to the steps about 35 minutes earlier than usual April 19, it was shaping up as the same old routine.She then noticed a yellow Ryder truck parked in front of the building. Nothing seemed too eventful - until the now historic time of 9:02 a.m."All of a sudden I couldn't see anything," she recalls. "All I could see was dust and debris, and so me and my friend just ducked our heads down."I was sitting there, and I screamed at my friend, 'What is it? ' and the next thing I know I was standing up against the Journal Record Building. " The routine had been shattered by a "loud roaring noise," dirt and rocks.

The door they had exited through about 8:55 a.m. - the one that opened outward - was now about 20 feet inside the building, she said. I told my mom that God must have been sitting right beside us," said the Oklahoma City woman, who now uses the word "fortunate" on a regular basis.

"While we were trying to get out, I kept thinking, 'I'll never see my children again.'"

Patricia Fly, 31, worked in the state student loan office in the Journal Record Building. When the bomb went off in front of the federal building, she said, it was like someone put the contents of her office in a blender, then poured it back in through a window.

It left Fly and her co-workers bruised, bleeding and trapped inside the building. It took 40 minutes of climbing over debris and down collapsed stairwells to get out.

In the first few seconds, she could hear the floors of the Murrah Building across the street crashing to the ground one by one - a sound like the rumbling of an approaching storm. She thought it was her own building collapsing.

"While we were trying to get out, I kept thinking, 'I'll never see my children again,' " she said.

'Life's got teeth, and luckily I came away with most of me intact'

Steve Pruitt was at his desk on the northwest side of the third floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building when the bombing occurred at 9:02 a.m. April 19.

Pruitt doesn't recall hearing the blast or feeling its impact. He does remember waking up and, for a fleeting moment, feeling horrified at the thought that he might have fallen asleep at his desk. But when Pruitt tried to open his eyes and lift his head, he discovered he couldn't see and that something had him pinned against a hard surface.

Pruitt knew something bad had happened, but he didn't know what. He began yelling the name of his boss, Richard Clough, and those cries attracted the attention of rescuers.

Doctors and nurses at Presbyterian Hospital told him he was wearing a tag that read "9:40. " Pruitt does not know whether that's the time he was carried out of the bombed building, put in the ambulance or arrived at the hospital.

At Presbyterian, Pruitt underwent emergency surgery on his face and eyes. He had massive fractures across his nose and both cheekbones and at the point where the lower jaw is hinged to his upper jaw. He also suffered significant injuries to both eyes, particularly the left one, and some hearing loss.

"The biggest lesson I've gotten out of all this is how much the cards, letters, prayers and encouragement from so many people have really meant in helping me deal with this," Pruitt said. "I appreciate being alive - having my wife, two healthy sons and living in a nice house.

"But I've also gotten a taste of how rough life can really get," he said.

"Life's got teeth, and luckily I came away with most of me intact. "

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma City bombing: Stories from the survivors