|
Oklahoma bombing survivor describes injuries { April 30 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0404/143468.htmlhttp://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0404/143468.html
Oklahoma Bombing Survivors Describe Injuries
UPDATED - Friday April 30, 2004 7:04am
McALESTER, Okla. (AP) - A routine spring morning for Eric McKisick turned into a struggle to survive when a bomb blew through his Social Security Administration office in the Oklahoma City federal building.
"A curtain of darkness descended on us," McKisick told jurors Thursday at bombing conspirator Terry Nichols' state murder trial. "The ceiling was down on the floor. The light fixtures are not in the ceiling but around our heads."
And bits of debris and concrete dust filled the air. "It was not something you wanted to breathe. It was something you had to taste," he said.
McKisick said he heard the cries of co-workers trapped in their work stations and helped free two of them before he made his way outside the devastated building.
He testified Thursday that he eventually made his way back inside to find other co-workers who were unaccounted for.
"Is there anyone who needs help?" McKisick cried out over and over. "I didn't get a response. I wasn't able to locate any of our employees after that."
A total of 27 people were killed in the first-floor Social Security office in the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing - 16 employees and 11 of their customers.
Also Thursday, retired Marine Corps Capt. Michael Norfleet testified that he thought it was his lucky day when he found a parking spot close to the Oklahoma City federal building, a couple of car lengths ahead of a yellow Ryder truck parked out front.
Norfleet was in the Marine Corps recruiting office on the sixth floor when a massive explosion thrust the office into darkness and pelted him with flying glass that stung like pea gravel being thrown at his face.
"It had pretty much turned the right side of my head into hamburger," Norfleet testified.
Seconds later, Norfleet was hurled face-first into a wall as concrete and steel from the floor above him crumbled and fell. He suffered a fractured skull and broken nose, and he suffered permanent blindness in his right eye when a two-centimeter shard of glass pierced it.
Norfleet, a Marine Corps aviator who flew 35 combat missions over Iraq in Desert Storm in 1991, said he received a disability retirement from the Marines.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Friday, when prosecutors will wrap up their case after 29 days.
Prosecutors plan to question three medical examiners about the deaths of some of the 168 people in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Defense attorneys are scheduled to open their case on May 6.
Nichols, 49, is charged with 161 state counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 160 victims and one victim's fetus. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
He is already serving a life prison sentence following convictions on federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges for the deaths of eight federal law enforcement agents in the bombing.
Nichols is accused of helping bomber Timothy McVeigh gather components for the 4,000-pound ammonium-nitrate-and-fuel-oil bomb and pack it into a Ryder truck the day before the explosion.
McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges and executed in June 2001.
Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.
|
|
