Oklahoma City: The Blood of Innocents

IN THE BOMB'S AFTERMATH, TALES OF HORROR AND HEROISM

By Nancy Gibbs Monday, May 01, 1995

    • (6 of 7)

    The spirits of rescuers and the millions of people watching rose around 10 o'clock that night, when another girl was heard calling out from the chaos. By the time they reached her, Brandy Liggons, 15, had been trapped for nearly 12 hours. "You can't imagine what it looked like where she was," says surgeon Rick Nelson, who had to climb over corpses to get to her. "She was completely covered in rubble, twisted metal framing and electrical conduit of about two inches in diameter. She seemed to be wrapped around a metal chair." It took three hours to extract Brandy, while Nelson gave her oxygen and cheered her along with small talk. "I told her she was being treated by the best-looking surgeon in Oklahoma," he said. "Stuff like that."

    ALMOST EVERYONE NOW KNOWS AREN Almon's daughter Baylee. The photograph of the one-year-old cradled in the arms of a fire fighter has become the symbol of catastrophe all over the world. "Hard Copy has been bugging me for an interview," said Aren. "I said no, and the guy just kept taking pictures." Baylee had just marked her first birthday on April 18. At 7:45 the next morning, her mother left her at the federal building's day-care center and went off to her new job at an insurance company. "She was learning how to walk," Aren says, her voice breaking. When she heard the explosion, Aren thought, "Thunder in the middle of the day?" Then she saw it was the federal building. "And then we heard that they had found a baby with yellow booties, and I knew it was her." The family wants to keep Baylee's funeral private. "We don't want any press there," says Aren's mother Debbie. "We just don't want this to be a circus." Says Aren: "I know my daughter is in heaven. I know she is."

    For the families still waiting for word, it was hard to know which was worse, the uncertainty or the news that another body had been found. Over at the First Presbyterian Church, survivors and families passed around photocopies of pictures, snapshots or posters with descriptions of husbands and wives, sons and daughters, hoping someone might have seen them alive. They faxed descriptions to hospitals. On Thursday, at least 300 people flooded First Christian Church bearing dental records, descriptions of birthmarks or other features that might help in the dreaded identification process. Forensic dentists, fingerprint squads and X-ray teams combined to examine the remains for clues, not only to the victims' identities, but also for bits of wire or shrapnel that might help lead investigators to the type of bomb used. Visual identification by relatives was a last resort.

    3. 1
    4. 2
    5. 3
    6. 4
    7. 5
    8. 6
    9. 7