THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9504290102
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
THE NIGHTMARE didn't end with coming home, Dr. David Cash said Thursday, the day after returning from Oklahoma City.
Though they are highly trained, Cash said, nothing could have prepared the search-and-rescue teams for what they encountered as they looked for survivors of the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Cash, an emergency room doctor at Obici Hospital, believes his medical background and his emergency room experience helped him cope better than some. Still, he will go through the crisis counseling offered to the emergency workers.
He is medical director of Virginia Task Force 2, the regional search-and-rescue team that spent six days sifting through rubble for survivors.
``Unfortunately, we didn't encounter any live victims,'' said Cash, a Virginia Beach native who lives in Chesapeake.
The 56-member team arrived in Oklahoma City 30 hours after the bombing.
``The people who are going to have trouble are the firefighters and the people who have never seen a body that has been dead four days,'' said Cash, 39.
``To never be exposed to that, and then being exposed to the worst thing you could see, is just indescribable,'' he said.
The rescuers battled varied emotions.
``There was amazement at the power of the explosion,'' Cash said. ``There was extreme anger that one person could have done so much damage. And fear, while working, that the building could collapse any time and put your own life in danger. Then there was a natural revulsion to pulling out a decayed body after several days.''
The Virginia Beach-based rescuers, the third national team to arrive, first had to make sure the building was safe to enter.
Working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., they found five or six victims the first night. The next night, they found 14 more.
``They probably died immediately from the blast of the bomb,'' he said.
The pictures relayed by the media couldn't adequately portray the horror, Cash said.
``They didn't do justice to what the building actually looked like,'' he said. ``The heavy, reinforced concrete structure was basically blown apart. It was hard to imagine.
``Nine floors of concrete pancaked down on each other,'' he said.
Each member of the Federal Emergency Management Team, one of 24 in the country, has a specialty, Cash said.
Some are structural engineers, others are responsible for lifting large pieces of concrete. Some handle search dogs. Others operate ultra-sensitive equipment to listen for sounds of life.
``They are all an integral part of the team,'' he said.
But many more also train with them so 56 can be activated on short notice. The team had been put on alert before, but this was its first major disaster.
``My responsibility was to take care of the other members of the team first,'' he said.
If any victims had been found, he also would have provided medical care for them.
``It quickly became apparent that it would be a miracle if anybody could survive,'' he said.
Medically, his team fared better than some. ``We had some viruses that went through the team, but fortunately, we had no major injuries,'' Cash said. ``The illnesses are what you expect. The injuries are what you worry about.''
The team members suffered mainly from colds, which was not surprising since no one had slept for about 60 hours after being activated, he said.
And they constantly worked in thick dust that irritated their throats and noses despite their respirators.
``The dust was just incredible,'' he said. ``You'll never see anything like it.''
A rescuer from Miami was hit on the head with a piece of concrete that probably would have killed him if he had not been wearing a helmet, Cash said. Others had bad cuts or major back injuries from trying to move through the cramped spaces.
``It took a lot of collective heroism to go in that building, knowing it could collapse any minute,'' Cash said. ``It took a lot of intestinal fortitude to trust your engineers who were telling you it was OK.''
Once while they were working, a known terrorist managed to slip past the security guards by posing as a rescuer, Cash said. He was later arrested, but police were concerned that he might have planted a second bomb.
Another difficult time came when Cash and two Oklahoma City firefighters were trying to remove a body.
Suddenly, the building shifted.
``We had to get out pretty quickly,'' he said. ``There was pretty high tension.''
As the rescuers from Virginia and New York were preparing to leave, the Oklahoma state legislature held a reception in their honor.
``It was very touching to walk in and shake hands with them - many with tears in their eyes,'' Cash said.
The people in Oklahoma took excellent care of the rescuers, even bringing them food and doing their laundry.
``It's comforting to find out that some people in the world still consider others human beings,'' Cash said.
Scott Rogers, a Virginia Beach firefighter who lives in Zuni, also went with the team.
He said he was moved by the national response to the disaster and by the appreciation shown to the team.
On the way home Wednesday to Zuni, Rogers was surprised to see a sign at a Windsor church: ``Welcome home, Scott.''
He said the collective sentiment seems to be, ``You did something we couldn't do, and that's what it's all about.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Dr. David Cash, a doctor at Obici Hospital, believes his medical
background and his emergency room experience helped him cope better
than some who went to Oklahoma City.
OTHERS WHO WENT
Scott Rogers, a Virginia Beach firefighter who lives in Zuni,
and Henry Hackney, a Newport News firefighter who lives in
Smithfield, also went to Oklahoma with Va. Task Force 2.
KEYWORDS: OKLAHOMA BOMBING RESCUE by CNB