Painful Memories

Kathleen Treanor lost her 4-year-old daughter Ashley in the Oklahoma City bombing.	Painful Memories The Victims' Stories, in Their Own Words June 11 — Before Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death, bombing survivors, relatives of the dead and rescue workers took the witness stand, describing moments of terror and the pain of losing people they loved.

Kathleen Treanor lost her 4-year-old daughter Ashley and in-laws, LaRue and Luther Treanor.

"When we got there they singled me out and asked me if I was Ashley Eckles' mother and I said 'Yes' and they said 'We regret to inform you that your daughter was among the dead.'"

The Final Remains

Treanor said that her husband Michael, "asked the medical examiner's office if they would please hold off until they identified both Luther and LaRue. It was bad enough that we had to deal with three people, but to have to come down here two, three more times was more than we could handle."

"Six months after we buried everyone and things had pretty much calmed down, Ray Blakeney from the medical examiner's office called me. He said they had recovered and positively identified a portion of Ashley's hand and 'I need to know what you want to have done with that or if you wanted it to be buried in the mass grave'", Treanor remembered. "Of course, I was upset, and I said 'we definitely wanted it' and that we would make arrangements to have it buried near her," she said.

A Haunting Search

Capt. Don Browning, with his dog, Gunny, searched for bodies for 40 straight days.

"I still suffer through that same nightmare," Browning said. "I dream that I'm crawling through the rubble. It's dark, and I hear children crying from in front of me and to my right. I begin to feel the ground tremble underneath me, which turns into a draw, almost a rumbling monstrous draw. And I turn and run, and the kids quit crying and I feel very guilty that I didn't get to them."

Cynthia Ashwood lost her sister, Susan Ferrell.

"I didn't realize how hard birthdays were," said Ashwood. "And not seeing my sister … [has] been very haunting," she said.

Pointing to a picture, Ashwood remembered her sister. "That's Susie and she is sitting on a tree that is out in the front yard of the farm, I call it, where we now live," said Ashwood. "And she is embracing my two children, Rachael, who at that time was 1, and Donald at that time was 6. And they loved her very, very much."

"Albert and I decided to tell him [Donald] together and I think that was one of the hardest things for me to do," said Ashwood. "And he's only 8 now and he has his bouts with crying. And I know he was not her child, but she was such an important person to him, and like many children probably do, will turn around and ask me, 'Well, Aunt Susie, is she dead?' And of course I have to explain 'yes,'" she said.

Squeezing a Hand

Alan Prokop was one of the first rescuers on the scene.

"As I moved to the area around the elevator shaft I observed a hand and arm to be coming out of the debris and waving back and forth," Prokop said. I walked over and attempted to uncover the body connected to the hand. It appeared to be a female. Her hand was warm. She was clutching my hand. I held it as it squeezed and I could hear muffled moans from behind the concrete."

Prokop remembered, "I could hear water running in the area and I screamed to the other rescuers that we had to get the water turned off, that I felt she was drowning. The rescue worker behind the slab hollered that that wasn't water, it's blood, and he held up his hands and I observed they were covered with blood."

After about three more minutes, "her hand got very still and started to get cold. I checked the wrist for a pulse and found none," he said.

"I did not control myself very well, " he said, "and I advised the other rescue workers that there was a lady here that they needed to handle and I didn't feel like I could stay there anymore so I moved into the day care area and began to work there."

Too Young for Fear

Sharon Medearis lost her husband of 22½ years, Claude Arthur Medearis.

Medearis met her husband when she was 12-years-old. "He was very gentle, very caring, Medearis said. "He never belittled anyone. He was a practical joker. He loved to make people smile."

"We got an emergency transfer to come home to Norman when [my daughter] Kathryn's husband was killed in Desert Storm. She was six and a half months pregnant.

"She says that 'God took her first husband so that she would be able to help me through this' and we spend as much time together as we can," Medearis said.

"My granddaughter's afraid of losing everyone that she loves. She's only 6-years-old. She shouldn't have to know that fear."

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COMMENTARY:

by: Charles Key