19 of the 168 people who died were children. The daycare was located on the second floor and filled with smiling little faces running around. Only six children survived the brutal bombing that McVeigh detonated.
These are a few of their stories:
NEKIA MCCLOUD
Nekia McCloud was young at the time and has no memory of the Oklahoma City bombing,but she still lives with the devastating results from the explosion.
.It isn't noticeable that 14-year-old Nekia suffers from severe head trauma and other injuries from the Oklahoma City Bombing.
it's still a reality that hits home every weekday, when she arrives at school by bus and heads to classes for seventh-graders with learning disabilities.
"We've come a long way, considering," said her mother, Lavern McCloud. "She had to completely relearn everything from a baby stage. They didn't know if she'd ever walk and talk again."
"It's my prayer," her mother said, "she'll be able to learn like a regular kid."
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
JOSEPH WEBBER
The only visible sign that 11-year-old Joseph Webber escaped death 10 years ago is a long, thin scar creasing his face from his left eye to his jawbone.
"People ask me, how'd I get this?" he said.
He tells them he survived the Oklahoma City bombing. He shrugs. It's a fact of his life, but it's not part of his memory. Most of what he knows about it, he knows from his parents.
"I'm glad I don't remember it," he said.
"I sometimes think Joe is a lot calmer and more grown up" for his age because of what he endured, said Webber.
A decade ago, though, his family feared for his future: The attack left him with two ruptured eardrums, a broken jaw and left arm, facial and body lacerations and a concussion.
"We might have tended to be more overprotective for a while, but we tried to keep everything in proper perspective," Webber said.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
BRANDON DENNY and REBECCA DENNY
Brandon and Rebecca Denny were the only siblings in the America's Kids day-care center to survive the Oklahoma City bombing. Neither Brandon, 13, nor Rebecca, 12, remembers anything about the blast now.
"When Brandon lost part of his brain," his father said, "it affected not only his right side -- his gait and right hand -- but also his comprehension skills."
Rebecca spent 10 days in the hospital. A piece of one of the blue plastic barrels in which the bomb was packed sliced through her left cheek, between the eye and cheekbone.
"She looked," said her mother, a 20-year IRS employee, "like a piece of raw meat."
Brandon's health needs were so acute that Jim Denny quit his job as a shop foreman with a company that built oil well drilling tools and the family sold their home. They hope to be homeowners again, perhaps in the next two years.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
CHRISTOPHER NGUYEN
It was the start of Little League season, and Christopher Nguyen wanted his hair just like his teammates': a keep-your-head-cool buzz-cut.
When he returned home from the barbershop, he glimpsed his newly shorn black locks in the mirror. He shot out of the bathroom, screaming and crying.
"Look at how the barber messed up my head," wailed Chris, then about 7.
He had never seen the scars -- the permanent evidence that he survived the Oklahoma City bombing.
"I don't remember anything," said Chris, now a 15-year-old freshman at a Catholic high school in north Oklahoma City.
Despite everything he's endured, Chris Nguyen seems every bit the typical teenager.
He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life but exudes a passion for art and an interest in public service stirred, he said, by meeting firefighters and other rescue workers who helped bombing survivors.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
P.J. ALLEN
P.J. Allen is philosophical about surviving the Oklahoma City bombing.
"Sometimes I do wish this hadn't happened to me," the 11-year-old said, "but then I think about all the things I've gotten to do."
He met Oprah Winfrey and appeared on her television show. He was photographed with two presidents. And he became fast friends with the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, who still writes him letters and sends presents. Still, he will forever bear the scars and physical woes of the fiery explosion that virtually incinerated his lungs and inflicted third-degree burns over the upper 55 percent of his body.
His left arm was broken in three places. Rocks were imbedded in his head. For days, he fought an on-and-off 104-degree-plus fever, treated with ice blankets and Tylenol.
Now a full-time student at KIPP Reach College Preparatory School in northeast Oklahoma City, an ever-smiling, often-rambunctious P.J. said most of his classmates know of his brush with death.
He lived for years with a tracheotomy to improve his breathing. On a typical day, he still needs three 30-minute breathing treatments. He carries two inhalers.
Watson, though, fears that P.J. could face significant roadblocks in pursuing his dreams. Because of his injuries, she said, he doesn't qualify for most health or life insurance -- only those policies that are cost-prohibitive. Not many companies, she said, are likely to hire someone with his health problems.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
These are a few of their stories:
NEKIA MCCLOUD
Nekia McCloud was young at the time and has no memory of the Oklahoma City bombing,but she still lives with the devastating results from the explosion.
.It isn't noticeable that 14-year-old Nekia suffers from severe head trauma and other injuries from the Oklahoma City Bombing.
it's still a reality that hits home every weekday, when she arrives at school by bus and heads to classes for seventh-graders with learning disabilities.
"We've come a long way, considering," said her mother, Lavern McCloud. "She had to completely relearn everything from a baby stage. They didn't know if she'd ever walk and talk again."
"It's my prayer," her mother said, "she'll be able to learn like a regular kid."
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
JOSEPH WEBBER
The only visible sign that 11-year-old Joseph Webber escaped death 10 years ago is a long, thin scar creasing his face from his left eye to his jawbone.
"People ask me, how'd I get this?" he said.
He tells them he survived the Oklahoma City bombing. He shrugs. It's a fact of his life, but it's not part of his memory. Most of what he knows about it, he knows from his parents.
"I'm glad I don't remember it," he said.
"I sometimes think Joe is a lot calmer and more grown up" for his age because of what he endured, said Webber.
A decade ago, though, his family feared for his future: The attack left him with two ruptured eardrums, a broken jaw and left arm, facial and body lacerations and a concussion.
"We might have tended to be more overprotective for a while, but we tried to keep everything in proper perspective," Webber said.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
BRANDON DENNY and REBECCA DENNY
Brandon and Rebecca Denny were the only siblings in the America's Kids day-care center to survive the Oklahoma City bombing. Neither Brandon, 13, nor Rebecca, 12, remembers anything about the blast now.
"When Brandon lost part of his brain," his father said, "it affected not only his right side -- his gait and right hand -- but also his comprehension skills."
Rebecca spent 10 days in the hospital. A piece of one of the blue plastic barrels in which the bomb was packed sliced through her left cheek, between the eye and cheekbone.
"She looked," said her mother, a 20-year IRS employee, "like a piece of raw meat."
Brandon's health needs were so acute that Jim Denny quit his job as a shop foreman with a company that built oil well drilling tools and the family sold their home. They hope to be homeowners again, perhaps in the next two years.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
CHRISTOPHER NGUYEN
It was the start of Little League season, and Christopher Nguyen wanted his hair just like his teammates': a keep-your-head-cool buzz-cut.
When he returned home from the barbershop, he glimpsed his newly shorn black locks in the mirror. He shot out of the bathroom, screaming and crying.
"Look at how the barber messed up my head," wailed Chris, then about 7.
He had never seen the scars -- the permanent evidence that he survived the Oklahoma City bombing.
"I don't remember anything," said Chris, now a 15-year-old freshman at a Catholic high school in north Oklahoma City.
Despite everything he's endured, Chris Nguyen seems every bit the typical teenager.
He doesn't know what he wants to do with his life but exudes a passion for art and an interest in public service stirred, he said, by meeting firefighters and other rescue workers who helped bombing survivors.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml
P.J. ALLEN
P.J. Allen is philosophical about surviving the Oklahoma City bombing.
"Sometimes I do wish this hadn't happened to me," the 11-year-old said, "but then I think about all the things I've gotten to do."
He met Oprah Winfrey and appeared on her television show. He was photographed with two presidents. And he became fast friends with the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, who still writes him letters and sends presents. Still, he will forever bear the scars and physical woes of the fiery explosion that virtually incinerated his lungs and inflicted third-degree burns over the upper 55 percent of his body.
His left arm was broken in three places. Rocks were imbedded in his head. For days, he fought an on-and-off 104-degree-plus fever, treated with ice blankets and Tylenol.
Now a full-time student at KIPP Reach College Preparatory School in northeast Oklahoma City, an ever-smiling, often-rambunctious P.J. said most of his classmates know of his brush with death.
He lived for years with a tracheotomy to improve his breathing. On a typical day, he still needs three 30-minute breathing treatments. He carries two inhalers.
Watson, though, fears that P.J. could face significant roadblocks in pursuing his dreams. Because of his injuries, she said, he doesn't qualify for most health or life insurance -- only those policies that are cost-prohibitive. Not many companies, she said, are likely to hire someone with his health problems.
http://staugustine.com/stories/041805/nat_3021344.shtml