recuperating from terrible injuries,
told a remarkable story.
Randy Ledger, 38, was also on the
first floor at the time of the explosion.
He was buried under the rubble, and
blood poured from his slashed throat.
As he lay there, bleeding to death, he
heard the distinctively gruff, husky
voice of his friend: “Don’t worry, guy,”
Michael Loudenslager boomed. “I
see you, and I’m going to get help.”
When rescue workers found Ledger,
they clawed the rubble from his body.
Paramedics rushed to stop the gushing
blood and carried him away.
Only minutes from death, Ledger
reached the hospital and began a
slow recovery from a severed artery
and vein in his neck. Although he
could not speak at first and commu-
nicated only by notes, he was able
to let people know that it was Mike
Loudenslager who had found him.
Certainly, Mike was alive.
Days later, though, Mike’s body was
recovered—crushed beneath a huge
concrete block deep inside the build-
ing, far from the spot where he had
last seen his friend. Apparently he had
gone farther in to help get someone
else. “That’s the kind of guy he was,”
Ledger says.
HUGS AND TEARS
Even those not physically touched
by the disaster will feel its effects for
the rest of their lives. When Don Hull
went home to rest after spending seven
hours at the Murrah Building, he felt
he had to keep active. He dreaded what
he would see if he let sleep take control
of his brain. Images more awful than
any nightmare kept coming to mind.
Most of the people he had seen in the
building had been dead or dying. “As
long as I kept my eyes open, I could
control what I was seeing,” he says.
With their own daughters, seven
and three, in bed, Hull and his wife
collapsed in front of the television
set to catch up on the larger story of
the bombing. One late-night news re-
port said most of the children in the
childcare center were presumed to be
dead. Then it showed a very brief in-
terview with one parent whose child
had emerged alive from the blast.
Hull grabbed his wife’s hand. “I
know that guy. I pulled his baby out!”
Hull had been told the baby died, but
the man on TV seemed to be hopeful
about his child’s chances, and then
the interview was over.
At once, Hull called the hospital,
and an operator put him through
to the waiting room where Dan and
Dawn Webber were keeping vigil
over their son, Joseph. Hull wanted to
know how the child was.
Dan confirmed they were the par-
ents he had shielded from seeing the
badly injured baby. He explained that
the boy was in grave condition but
that doctors thought he had a chance.
“There’s no way our son would be
alive if you hadn’t gotten him out,”
Dan told Hull.rd.com 101Special Report