Oklahoma City Bombing Research Articles

One-Year Vestibular and Balance Outcomes of Oklahoma City Bombing Survivors

This multisite investigation assessed subjective, behavioral, and objective balance function in 30 blast survivors. Subjects with vertigo, dizziness, or imbalance were screened (n = 6) or evaluated (n = 27) during 1 year. Tests included a questionnaire, electronystagmography (ENG), and computerized dynamic posturography (CDP). Ninety-seven percent of subjects were located inside a building during the blast, and 63 percent of subjects experienced dysequilibrium within 48 hours. Forty-three percent of symptoms could not be attributed to head injury. Sixty percent of subjects had abnormal ENG and/or CDP; ENG abnormalities mostly were peripheral or nonlocalizing, whereas CDP patterns were "vestibular," "surface dependent," and "physiologically inconsistent." At 1-year postblast, 55 percent of initially abnormal CDP results were normal, and 72 percent of subjects said symptoms were unchanged or occurred intermittently. A serial, test battery approach is recommended to assess symptoms. Blast-related dysequilibrium had clinically significant manifestations and should be considered a valid component of aural blast injury.

Psychiatric disorders among survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Disasters expose unselected populations to traumatic events and can be used to study the mental health effects. The Oklahoma City, Okla, bombing is particularly significant for the study of mental health sequelae of trauma because its extreme magnitude and scope have been predicted to render profound psychiatric effects on survivors. To measure the psychiatric impact of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on survivors of the direct blast, specifically examining rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), diagnostic comorbidity, functional impairment, and predictors of postdisaster psychopathology. Of 255 eligible adult survivors selected from a confidential registry, 182 (71%) were assessed systematically by interviews approximately 6 months after the disaster, between August and December 1995. Diagnosis of 8 psychiatric disorders, demographic data, level of functioning, treatment, exposure to the event, involvement of family and friends, and physical injuries, as ascertained by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule/Disaster Supplement. Forty-five percent of the subjects had a postdisaster psychiatric disorder and 34.3% had PTSD. Predictors included disaster exposure, female sex (for any postdisaster diagnosis, 55% vs 34% for men; chi2 = 8.27; P=.004), and predisaster psychiatric disorder (for PTSD, 45% vs 26% for those without predisaster disorder; chi2 = 6.86; P=.009). Onset of PTSD was swift, with 76% reporting same-day onset. The relatively uncommon avoidance and numbing symptoms virtually dictated the diagnosis of PTSD (94% meeting avoidance and numbing criteria had full PTSD diagnosis) and were further associated with psychiatric comorbidity, functional impairment, and treatment received. Intrusive reexperience and hyperarousal symptoms were nearly universal, but by themselves were generally unassociated with other psychopathology or impairment in functioning. Our data suggest that a focus on avoidance and numbing symptoms could have provided an effective screening procedure for PTSD and could have identified most psychiatric cases early in the acute postdisaster period. Psychiatric comorbidity further identified those with functional disability and treatment need. The nearly universal yet distressing intrusive reexperience and hyperarousal symptoms in the majority of nonpsychiatrically ill persons may be addressed by nonmedical interventions of reassurance and support.

Emergency Department Impact of the Oklahoma City Terrorist Bombing

Study objective: To collect descriptive epidemiologic injury data on patients who suffered acute injuries after the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing and to describe the effect on metropolitan emergency departments. Methods: A retrospective review of the medical records of victims seen for injury or illness related to the bombing at 1 of the 13 study hospitals from 9:02 AM to midnight April 19, 1995. Rescue workers and nontransported fatalities were excluded. Results: Three hundred eighty-eight patients met inclusion criteria; 72 (18.6%) were admitted, 312 (80.4%) were treated and released, 3 (.7%) were dead on arrival, and 1 had undocumented disposition. Patients requiring admission took longer to arrive to EDs than patients treated and released ( P =.0065). The EDs geographically closest to the blast site (1.5 radial miles) received significantly more victims than more distant EDs ( P <.0001). Among the 90 patients with documented prehospital care, the most common interventions were spinal immobilization (964/90, 71.1%), field dressings (40/90, 44.4%), and intravenous fluids (32/90, 35.5%). No patients requiring prehospital CPR survived. Patients transported by EMS had higher admission rates than those arriving by any other mode ( P <.0001). The most common procedures performed were wound care and intravenous infusion lines. The most common diagnoses were lacerations/contusion, fractures, strains, head injury, abrasions, and soft tissue foreign bodies. Tetanus toxoid, antibiotics, and analgesics were the most common pharmaceutical agents used. Plain radiology, computed tomographic radiology, and the hospital laboratory were the most significantly utilized ancillary services. Conclusion: EMS providers tended to transport the more seriously injured patients, who tended to arrive in a second wave at EDs. The closest hospitals received the greatest number of victims by all transport methods. The effects on pharmaceutical use and ancillary service were consistent with the care of penetrating and blunt trauma. The diagnoses in the ED support previous reports of the complex but often nonlethal nature of bombing injuries. [Hogan DE, Waeckerle JF, Dire DJ, Lillibridge SR: Emergency department impact of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing. Ann Emerg Med August 1999;34:160-167.]

Mental health services for children in the first two years after the 1995 Oklahoma City terrorist bombing.

Nineteen infants and children were killed in the 1995 terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City, and many were injured. More than 200 children lost one or both parents. These casualties focused attention on children in the disaster response efforts. This paper describes the development and implementation of a school-based mental health program that provided accessible services to children affected by the bombing, with an emphasis on normalization. A clinical needs assessment of all children in the Oklahoma City public school system was carried out, and clinicians provided emergency and crisis services, counseling, and support groups.

Lessons from the first two years of Project Heartland, Oklahoma's mental health response to the 1995 bombing.

On April 19, 1995, a terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City killed 168 people and injured 853 others. The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services was the lead agency in crafting a community mental health response to reduce impairment of those affected. The Project Heartland program, which opened on May 15, 1995, was the first community mental health program in the U.S. designed to intervene in the short to medium term with survivors of a major terrorist event. The authors describe lessons learned in the areas of planning and service delivery, as well as the types and extent of services provided in the project's first two years.

Clinical Needs Assessment of Middle and High School Students Following the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing

This clinical assessment was designed to identify middle and high school students in need of formal evaluation for posttraumatic response symptoms following the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A clinical needs assessment instrument was developed and administered to grade 6 through 12 students 7 weeks after the bombing (N = 3,218). More than 40% of the students reported knowing someone injured, and more than one-third reported knowing someone killed in the blast. Posttraumatic stress symptoms at 7 weeks significantly correlated with gender, exposure through knowing someone injured or killed, and bomb-related television viewing. This study documents the intensity of community exposure to the bombing and the lingering symptoms of stress. The assessment was used in planning for clinical service delivery, training professional responders, and supporting funding requests.

An Interdisciplinary Approach to a Critical Incident Course

Today's rapid social change, explosion of new technologies, and overwhelming amount of multidisciplinary knowledge have required journalism to be more flexible and interdisciplinary (Atwater, 1993; Iorio & Williamson, 1995: Rakow, 1993). In an era when disciplinary boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred and knowledge is widely considered to be interdisciplinary, researchers and educators must place greater emphasis on the interconnection of the external world and the need for cooperation among disciplines. Journalism educators should be no exception to this trend. They have to borrow frequently from other disciplines and understand the interconnectedness to achieve integrated solutions. They should also have contributions they offer to students in other disciplines who need a fuller understanding of the role journalism plays in the post-modern era. Over the past decade several journalism programs have stressed the necessity of mutual understanding and cooperation with other disciplines. According to the report of the AEJMC Vision 2000 Task Force, for example, the Roy Park School of Communications at Ithaca College (N.Y.) tried to achieve its mission a program that is both integrative and holistic one which introduces students to the inteLlectual traditions and disciplines of communications and links these traditions and disciplines the rest of higher education (AEJMC, 1994, p.8.). In addition, Northwestern University's master's program offered several interdisciplinary courses that require students to cut across disciplines (Blanchard & Christ, 1993). In the master's program, three schools and two departments such as speech/telecommunication, journalism, management, and even engineering were joined. Moreover, the University of Iowa has formalized the interdisciplinary approach to a communication department (Blanchard & Christ, 1993). In coauthoring studies with other faculty on campus in varied disciplines, faculty of the department have identified many such linkages that can and should be made at the undergraduate level(Blanchard & Christ,1993, p.112). The community of journalism and mass communication, even if part of the liberal arts tradition, has nonetheless lacked an interdisciplinary understanding of the human world with holistic perspective (Beniger, 1993; Shoemaker 1993). Shoemaker (1993) said that, so far, journalism studies have not built linkages with other intellectual disciplines. She argues that the intellectual connections with other disciplines on campuses were necessary for journalism researchers and educators to enrich broad contextual knowledge. That knowledge be developed through exposure to the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Demonstrating a rethinking of the status quo in journalism teaching and research, Atwater (1993) commented in his AEJMC presidential address: We should be more involved in interdisciplinary pursuits, trans-collegiate programs, and inter-departmental curricular offerings that build bridges between our programs and others and create a stronger academic image for our units as academic citizens (p. 75). Fortunately, in our field there are some recent attempts to turn journalism's intellectual attention toward a variety of disciplines to produce more flexible and holistic thinking. These efforts are actually perceived as beneficial for students' intellectual growth. The Incidents course, offered at Michigan State University, is just such an example. The course, which received support from the Critical Incidents Analysis Group (CIAG)' and the Dart Foundation2, takes an interdisciplinary approach as a way to analyze major critical incidents3 (e.g., the California earthquakes, the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, and terrorism in the Middle East). The purpose of this article is to introduce the course as a part of a series of approaches to the interdisciplinary road, and ultimately to argue why journalism educators' participation in such a course in the larger university, as well as one centered in the J-school, is indispensable for the future of journalism. …

Glass-Related Injuries in Oklahoma City Bombing

When a terrorist bomb explodes in an urban area, it produces devastating effects, including structural and nonstructural damage to buildings, injuries, and deaths. Numerous injuries in explosions result directly and indirectly from window glass failure. Direct glass-related injuries occur when glass shards flying and falling from fractured windows cause lacerations and abrasions. Secondary glass-related injuries occur when the shock front of the blast wave passes into buildings through fenestrations vacated by fractured glazing. The Oklahoma city bombing killed 167 people and caused numerous injuries. Most of the deaths and many of the injuries occurred in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the target of the bomb. This event focused the attention of the engineering and security communities on two major issues: the prevention of progressive structural collapse and the design of blast-resistant glazing. This paper discusses glass-related injuries that occurred away from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Buil...

One-Year Audiologic Monitoring of Individuals Exposed to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing

This longitudinal study evaluated subjective, behavioral, and objective auditory function in 83 explosion survivors. Subjects were evaluated quarterly for 1 year with conventional pure-tone and extended high-frequencies audiometry, otoscopic inspections, immittance and speech audiometry, and questionnaires. There was no obvious relationship between subject location and symptoms or test results. Tinnitus, distorted hearing, loudness sensitivity, and otalgia were common symptoms. On average, 76 percent of subjects had predominantly sensorineural hearing loss at one or more frequencies. Twenty-four percent of subjects required amplification. Extended high frequencies showed evidence of acoustic trauma even when conventional frequencies fell within the normal range. Males had significantly poorer responses than females across frequencies. Auditory status of the group was significantly compromised and unchanged at the end of 1-year postblast.

Fertility among the ruins: The ‘heartland’, maternity, and the Oklahoma city bombing

Fertility among the ruins: The ‘heartland’, maternity, and the Oklahoma city bombing

Post-Disaster Stress Following the Oklahoma City Bombing

This article describes a study of 472 community members to determine the nature and course of the post-disaster response to the April 19, 1995, bombing in Oklahoma City. It was hypothesized that an individual's post-disaster reaction would resemble a linear function of the degree of exposure experienced, and that this dose-response relationship could be used to differentiate the expression of post-traumatic stress disorder and victimization symptomatology within the three study groups. The respondents were divided into three groups based on their level of exposure and proximity to the event. The findings partially support the stated hypotheses. As expected, the Oklahoma City groups reported higher levels of post-disaster disturbance than the comparison sample, although only PTSD and victimization could be used to differentiate among the three groups.

Organizing the Mental Health Response to Human-Caused Community Disasters With Reference to the Oklahoma City Bombing

Organizing the Mental Health Response to Human-Caused Community Disasters With Reference to the Oklahoma City Bombing

A Bombing in April: Culture and Disaster in the Oklahoma City Bombing

This article offers a meaning-centered approach to understanding Oklahomans' (and Americans') adaptation to the 19 April 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Adaptation to trauma is discussed in terms of the symbolism of trauma, especially the violation of the sense of place. Multiple, often competing, cultures of response and understandings of the crisis and of its solutions are explored. Key concepts discussed are sense of place, place symbolism, preparation, healing or recovery, timetable (closure), units of risk, units of community, heroism/heroes, crisis narrative (story line), therapeutic communities, cultural baseline, and emergent communities. In studying the relationship between incident, trauma, adaptation, narrative, and memory in a single disaster, this article contributes to a comparative framework of understanding disaster and recovery.

Patterns of Positive and Negative Religious Coping with Major Life Stressors

This study attempted to identify positive and negative patterns of religious coping methods, develop a brief measure of these religious coping patterns, and examine their implications for health and adjustment. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, positive and negative religious coping patterns were identified in samples of people coping with the Oklahoma City bombing, college students coping with major life stressors, and elderly hospitalized patients coping with serious medical illnesses. A 14-item measure of positive and negative patterns of religious coping methods (Brief RCOPE) was constructed. The positive pattern consisted of religious forgiveness, seeking spiritual support, collaborative religious coping, spiritual connection, religious purification, and benevolent religious reappraisal. The negative pattern was defined by spiritual discontent, punishing God reappraisals, interpersonal religious discontent, demonic reap praisal, and reappraisal of God's powers. As predicted, people made more use of the positive than the negative religious coping methods. Furthermore, the two patterns had different implications for health and adjustment. The Brief RCOPE offers an efficient, theoretically meaningful way to integrate religious dimensions into models and studies of stress, coping, and health.

After the Oklahoma City Bombing: A Case Study of the Resource Coordination Committee

The Resource Coordination Committee (RCC) was established to address unmet needs in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The purpose of the RCC was to bring together people who could contribute money, workers, or materials to serve unmet needs of disaster survivors. Initially composed of a working group of representatives from over 40 organizations, the RCC provided services or resources to individuals and families recovering from the disaster We explored the organizational dynamics that emerged as the committee came together to address the unmet needs of victims. Particular attention was given to the leadership processes of the committee, its approach to decision-making, its control of confidentiality, and how it addressed accountability. Also, we conducted an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the RCC as identified by the members. In this report, we conclude with considerations based on case study findings for addressing unmet needs in future disaster situations.

The Aryan New Era: Apocalyptic Realizations in The Turner Diaries

Although a relatively obscure book in the past, The Turner Diaries (by Andrew Macdonald) attracted considerable attention since April 19, 1995. The trial of Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing, shines a bright, examining light on the novel, but reveals much more than blueprints for bombing federal buildings. In The Turner Diaries, racially extreme ideologies and revolutionary worldviews both figure prominently, and the novel's potential readership is growing steadily amongst the more radical political and racial groups. National Alliance ideology, for instance, reaches tens of thousands of readers through The Turner Diaries. Written pseudonymously by William Pierce, who is the current head of the National Alliance, the novel tells the story of the dawning of the New Era. This New Era occurs through an intriguing combination of cataclysmic apocalyptic events and Neo-Nazi racist practices. The novel is the result of a complex fusion of Christian theologies, Neo-Nazi ideologies, scriptural interpretations, and extreme militancy. By the novel's end, the reader gains interesting insight into the Aryan worldview and its outlook on the future. In this article, I explore the unique worldview presented in The Turner Diaries by locating it in a framework of apocalyptic and sectarian theories. These theories deal specifically with sect ideology, common characteristics shared by apocalyptic groups, and the relationship between the interpretation of Christian doctrines and resulting actions. Because little critical material deals specifically with Macdonald's text,' primarily I will follow Gary Schwartz's sectarian theories, Norman Cohn's theory of millennial ideology, and Barkun's insights into extremist right wing groups to provide interpretive direction. While none of these texts provide specifics on Macdonald's novel, they do offer general patterns that help clarify the peculiarities of the Aryan visions presented in the text. Millenarian Ideology The primary worldview presented in The Turner Diaries is apocalyptic, with a decidedly premillennial quality.' This premillennial concept of the apocalypse is of cataclysmic political, social, and racial proportions. Moreover, it has incorporated certain characteristic features common to general millenarian belief systems, which are useful to review. Generally, groups that have a millenarian theme running through them: ... always picture salvation as (a) collective, in the sense that it is to be enjoyed by the faithful as a collectivity; (b) terrestrial, in the sense that it is to be realized on this earth and not in some other-worldly heaven; (c) imminent, in the sense that it is to come both soon and suddenly; (d) total, in the sense that it is utterly to transform life on earth, so that the new dispensation will be no mere improvement on the present but perfection of itself; (e) miraculous, in the sense that it is to accomplished by, or with the help of, supernatural agencies. (Cohn 13) All of these characteristics are present in The Turner Diaries, although in varying degrees. The other influences in the text, such as the Neo-Nazi racist elements, are incorporated with the millenarian group characteristics, distorting them and subtly forging a new, complex ideology that defies clear delineation. This new ideology, however, nevertheless maintains the general millenarian characteristics. The first of Cohn's criteria for classifying apocalyptic groups is that salvation is collective, and will be enjoyed by those who have faith in the prescribed doctrines (Cohn 13). This element features prominently in The Turner Diaries, where the driving theme of the book is the creation of a world where there is not only a separation of Whites from other ethnic groups, but also where the faithful's actions reflect the collective's doctrines: Those who were admitted [to the Organization]'-and that meant only children, women of childbearing age, and ablebodied men willing to fight in the Organization's ranks-- were subjected to much more severe racial screening than had been used to separate Whites from non-Whites in California. …

The Oklahoma City Bombing: Summary and Recommendations for Multihazard Mitigation

From visual inspection and analysis of the damage that occurred in the Murrah Building as a result of a blast caused by a large truck bomb, it is shown that progressive collapse extended the damage beyond that caused directly by the blast. The type of damage that occurred and the resulting collapse of nearly half the building is consistent with what would be expected for an ordinary moment frame building of the type and detailing available in the mid-1970s when subjected to the blast from such a large truck bomb. Using information developed for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, types of structural systems that would provide significant increases in toughness to structures subjected to catastrophic loading from events such as major earthquakes and blasts are identified. One of these systems is compartmentalized construction, in which a large percentage of the building has structural walls that are reinforced to provide structural integrity in case ...

The Oklahoma City Bombing: Analysis of Blast Damage to the Murrah Building

The truck bombing of the Murrah Building caused significant damage to this structure. From the characteristics of the bomb crater, it was determined that the explosion yielded energy comparable to that from the detonation of 1,814 kg (4,000 lbs) of trinitrotoluene (TNT). The blast directly removed a principal exterior column, and the associated airblast caused the failure of two others. The airblast also destroyed some of the floor slabs in the immediate vicinity. This paper describes the blast loading and its effect on the building.

The Oklahoma City Bombing: Structure and Mechanisms of the Murrah Building

In May 1995, the Federal Emergency Management Agency deployed a building performance assessment team composed of ASCE and federal government engineers to investigate damage caused by the malevolent bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. This paper describes the investigation of damage caused by the blast, the failure mechanism for the building, and engineering details of the building.

A paradigm for multidisciplinary disaster research: the oklahoma city experience

The objective of this article is to describe the creation and operation of a multidisciplinary group to examine the Oklahoma City (OKC) bombing. The OKC bombing presented an opportunity to study a major disaster within 2 days of the incident. The Disaster Health Studies Group (DHSG) was created to facilitate this effort. The creation, organization, and operation of the DHSG is outlined. In addition the mission statement, participants, communications, political empowerment, data preservation and collection, data ownership, patient rights, threats to the DHSG, media interactions, funding, the institutional review board process, and results reporting will be detailed. The 22 projects of the DHSG are listed. In conclusion, four main findings are examined: 1) A multidisciplinary disaster study group is feasible and can be rapidly organized; 2) certain organizations and institutions form a core group for facilitation of the research effort; 3) specific issues must be addressed in order for the group to succeed; and 4) the group leader should have disaster expertise and be committed to the multidisciplinary process.