Pulled Out Alive: The Nancy Ingram Rescue
By Teddy G. Wilson
My family and I were planning to rest on April 19, 1995, after having buried my wife`s sister the day before. She died from burns that she and her six-year-old daughter had received when a stalking ex-boyfriend doused them with gasoline weeks before. Our niece survived. At 9:02 a.m., I heard the bomb blast, the house shook, and I knew something bad had happened. The TV news reported that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building had just been blown up.
I arrived in about 10 minutes, donned bunker gear, and proceeded to the first ambulance I saw on the building`s east side. I saw a baby and a woman lying there. I am an intermediate paramedic, so I prepared to assess the baby. While I was doing so, an attending medic came over to me and said, “The baby is dead.” I asked him what I could do and he said, “Get some gloves and go to work.”
I turned toward the building and saw a state trooper going through the east basement door. I followed him, and together we began to search the dark work stations. The water was rising over the debris, and we heard some firefighters working on the north side of us. I asked them if they had cleared the south side, and they had. They didn`t need any more help in their cramped work area, so I went out through a skylight farther west of the area. At this point, I was on the south side of the building. One of the firefighters called for a pry bar that was at my feet, so I took it to the second floor. Then I proceeded to the third floor. I looked where walls used to be and saw rescuers trying to gain access to a victim. Two state troopers were with me by then. Chief Mike Shannon was there as well. I told Shannon that I would work to try to free the victim, a female, age 63, and he continued his survey and size-up.
I told one officer to find an IV setup. As I approached the victim, I saw a purse on an overturned desk. It looked out of place. I looked inside and found some new checks, indicating the victim`s name was Nancy Ingram. As the troopers were trying to lift the slabs off Ingram, I told them we needed to start an IV before we took the weight off her.
I laid Ingram`s head down and verified her name. I introduced myself as a chaplain and a paramedic. I then brushed the rocks off her head and face and out of her ears and began my assessments. The troopers moved the smaller rocks from around her body. I called for the IV again. I asked Ingram if she went to church and she said, “Yes, I am a Christian.” I asked her if it would be OK to say a prayer, and she said, “Yes.” A large hand pressed on my back, and one of the troopers said, “Nancy, we are all Christians here with you and we are going to get you out.” We said a short prayer, and a rescue squad made up of Major Nathan Nichols, Corporal Doug Davis, Corporal Shane Duncan, and Firefighter Gary Snow brought an IV, along with a portable power saw and a jack.
The part of the credit union office (where we were) left intact was the 20-foot by 25-foot slab section that we were on. The rest was gone. By now we had begun to cough from the choking dust. I was given the IV setup and found that the catheter was too large for the victim`s small veins, but I had to try. I blew out her vein and called for smaller catheters, a backboard, MAST pants, and oxygen. The squad was working hard jacking, cribbing, and relocating, moving farther back toward Ingram`s knees, then to her shins, and then closer and closer to her feet.
After a few more minutes had passed, two nurses from St. Anthony`s Hospital showed up–“two angels,” Ingram called them–with smaller catheters. One tried to start an IV and it blew, also. The second attempt proved successful, and we had a line.
Things were going great, the line was running, the squad was getting closer, and the victim was calming down. She asked me what happened and I told her all I knew. She then said, “Well, you`d have thought they would have blown up my work this time of year!” “Where do you work?” I asked. “At the IRS,” she replied, laughing. We all laughed, and then the air horns and loudspeakers interrupted us.
“Everyone out of the building. Get out now. Stop what you are doing and get out. THERE IS ANOTHER BOMB! Get out!” yelled the division commander. Gripped with fear, Ingram said, “Please don`t leave me.” I told her I would not leave her. I sent the nurses out through the southeast stairwell and told the trooper to hang the IV line he was holding onto something and go. He told me he would stay. The squad also decided to stay. They knew we just needed a few more moments to get the freeing height. So I looked at Ingram and said, “We`re not going without you.”
“I see daylight,” one of the firefighters said. I didn`t know what that really meant at the time. I just thought we were getting the needed height. It actually meant we were on the north edge of the remaining floor. The floor that we were on was in a “V”-shaped break, and the slab directly beneath us had broken from the column and dropped 212 feet. I found this out three or four days later.
After the firefighter said this, I repositioned myself with my legs on either side of the victim and grabbed her under her arms in an attempt to pull her free. I told everyone what I was going to do: I was going to pull her up onto my chest, the trooper was not to allow the IV to come out, a firefighter was to grab Ingram, another was to clear the way, one was to grab the backboard and MAST pants, and I would bring up the rear down the southeast stairwell. It was a great plan, but she didn`t budge. In fact, she looked at me and said, “Please don`t pull my legs off.” Then I whispered a prayer: “Lord, please don`t let her legs come off! Lord, please lift this slab.”
I asked the firefighters to check for massive bleeding signs. There were none, because her legs were pinned in the “V” part of the break! I repositioned for another try and told everyone to get ready. I pulled, and this time the plan worked! The victim was soon on her way to the hospital.
Ingram suffered a broken hip and an infected ankle. The doctors found an almost totally occluded carotid artery a week later. She is back at work today. Would she have died if we had left her? She says she would have given up if we had gone. Only God knows for sure. BR>
TEDDY G. WILSON is a fire chaplain and recruit for the Oklahoma City (OK) Fire Department. For six years he was a volunteer chaplain for the department, the Oklahoma Fire Chief`s Association, and Aero-Space America. He also is the bi-vocational pastor of the Grand Blvd. Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. Wilson is an intermediate paramedic and has basic and advanced training in critical incident stress debriefing. He is a charter member of the OKCISM team and OCFD CISD team.
