This was a day that really changed the way that I looked at the world. It changed the way that I looked at myself. I thought I was a pretty powerful guy at the time. I was the director of trauma at a major university. I could say let’s get ready and the trauma center would spring into action.

Well, I was only about 6 hours away from OK City. I had the resources of a major medical center and we really couldn’t do anything to help them. There was nothing that we could do immediately to help.

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From Ok News:

Dina Abulon moved to Oklahoma City just a month before a bomb ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.

Her stepfather, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development employee Peter R. Avillanoza, died in the blast.

But Abulon, 25, said that isn’t what she remembers when she thinks about the three months she spent in Oklahoma before moving back to California.

Her clearest memory, she said Thursday at the annual remembrance ceremony at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, is the compassion shown to her family as they waited for word of her stepfather’s fate.

“Every hug from every stranger kept me going,” she said. “Every letter reminded me that I was not alone.” (more…)