ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY
SOURCE: JESSE KATZ LOS ANGELES TIMES
note: above
THE KIDS who survived the Oklahoma City bombing are making strides ... but "normal" may be beyond their reach.
The wheezing echoes like a foghorn, one raspy gasp after another, signaling his presence long before he comes into sight. It is an unsettling noise, guttural and frantic, a battle for air that sounds all the more tortured coming from such a tiny child.
But P.J. Allen, the most critically injured toddler to survive the federal building attack last April 19, is as delightful and bedeviling as any normal 2 1/2-year-old boy. Sprinting through the house, he seems mercifully unaware of his condition, of the singed lungs that rob him of oxygen, of the tracheotomy tube that delivers each breath through a small, surgically fashioned hole in his neck.
``This is P.J.'s ball,'' he puffs, pegging a visitor with a well-aimed pitch. Only after several hours of whirlwind play does he finally require a break: Performing a ritual repeated six times every day and night, P.J.'s grandparents tether him to a vaporizer, pumping a soothing medicinal mist into the incision at the base of his throat.
``People ask, `Will he ever have a normal life?''' says Deloris Watson, P.J.'s grandmother and legal guardian. ``Well, this will have to be normal for him. This is as normal as it's going to get.''
A year ago, even such a grave prognosis would have been considered optimistic. As one of just six children pulled alive from America's Kids, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building's ravaged day-care center, P.J. was little more than a bundle of gauze, his charred body sustained only by an ominous maze of wires and tubing.
It was an image of fragility, a violation of innocence, that personified Oklahoma City's loss. With 168 dead, 19 of them children, these six were the lucky ones - a notion sometimes hard to reconcile with the swollen, expressionless faces framed like masks by their swaddled heads.
Today, as a cavalcade of tributes and prayers marks the one-year anniversary of the bombing, the six youthful survivors remain symbols - of Oklahoma's regenerative spirit and of the many shattered lives that may never fully mend.
Each of the six has overcome imposing obstacles, testing the limits of technology and faith. Finally freed from the paralysis of catheters and ventilators, some have graduated to trampolines and pony rides. Silenced by the loss of brain tissue, others have learned to speak anew, thrilling their parents with ``mama'' and ``papa'' as if it were the first time.
As inspiring as their stories are, they also mirror all that is unresolved about Oklahoma City's recovery, the physical wounds as well as the psychic scars.
Some of the children still have debris lodged in their bodies, metal pins joining their bones, chunks of skull missing under their scalps. Others still require plastic surgery to restore disfigured faces and occupational therapy to retrain deadened limbs. A few have been rushed back to the emergency room, infection threatening to undo all of their gains.
Even if those wounds were to heal, the memory of what they have endured will not soon fade. The media spotlight, shunned by some of their families and embraced by others, has transformed several of the children into pint-sized celebrities. It also has ensured that their identities, like so many other aspects of life in post-bombing Oklahoma, remain inextricably linked to the horror of last April 19.
None of the children has been showered with more attention than 4-year-old Brandon Denny, who was pulled from the rubble along with his 3-year-old sister, Rebecca. Her wounds were mostly superficial; the explosion scorched her left side like a sandblaster. But Brandon was less fortunate, losing portions of his brain when the bomb ripped a hole through the back of his skull.
He is now able to walk with the aid of a brace on his right leg. He has begun to talk again, although he struggles to string together sentences. More important, he can throw his arms around his father and kiss him on the lips, finally returning the affection that Jim Denny lavished on his son in those first anguished days.
``This is kind of the success story out of all the death and destruction,'' says Denny.
``This is hope and healing right here,'' his wife, Claudia, adds.
Eager to share their joy over Brandon's continued recuperation, they have been granting interviews nearly every day for the past month, even jetting to New York this week courtesy of NBC and CBS. While the kids wrestled in the lobby of the Central Park hotel provided by the networks, the Dennys talked of their Oval Office meeting with President Clinton, their backstage visit to the set of ``Home Improvement'' and the coveted medallion presented by Mother Teresa.
As much as Brandon Denny shines in the public eye, 5-year-old Nekia McCloud has been sheltered. Although she also suffered a devastating brain injury, her recovery has scarcely been chronicled, which is exactly how her mother, LaVern, wants to keep it.
They still live in the same modest brick cottage, unadorned with commemorative plaques or celebrity photos. The toy room contains a little basketball hoop and a motorized Barbie car, but not the hundreds of stuffed animals that fill some other homes. If it weren't for the faint scars on Nekia's forehead, there would be scant evidence that she withstood the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
``I didn't want to expose her to all that,'' says McCloud, 33. ``It's OK to remember what happened, but to just keep dwelling and dwelling on it is not something that I choose to do.''
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. AP The Oklahoma City grave of Baylee Almon isby CNBdecorated for her birthday. She would have been 2 on Thursday.
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2. Three friends visit the site of the former Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City on Thursday. color