The Oklahoma City bombing was 30 years ago. Some survivors worry America
didn’t learn the lesson
[April 16, 2025]
By SEAN MURPHY
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Thirty years after a truck bomb detonated outside a
federal building in America's heartland, killing 168 people in the
deadliest homegrown attack on U.S. soil, deep scars remain.
From a mother who lost her first-born baby, a son who never got to know
his father, and a young man so badly injured that he still struggles to
breathe, three decades have not healed the wounds from the Oklahoma City
bombing on April 19, 1995.
The bombers were two former U.S. Army buddies, Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols, who shared a deep-seated hatred of the federal government
fueled by the bloody raid on the Branch Davidian religious sect near
Waco, Texas, and a standoff in the mountains of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that
killed a 14-year-old boy, his mother and a federal agent.
And while the bombing awakened the nation to the dangers of extremist
ideologies, many who suffered directly in the attack still fear
anti-government rhetoric in modern-day politics could also lead to
violence.
A 30-year anniversary remembrance ceremony is scheduled for April 19 on
the grounds of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum.
A baby killed and a mother's anguish
Little Baylee Almon had just celebrated her first birthday the day
before her mother, Aren Almon, dropped her off at the America's Kids
Daycare inside the Alfred P. Murrah federal building. It was the last
time Aren would see her first child alive.
The next day, Aren saw a photo on the front page of the local newspaper
of Baylee's battered and lifeless body cradled in the arms of an
Oklahoma City firefighter.
“I said: ‘That’s Baylee.' I knew it was her,” Aren Almon said. She
called her pediatrician, who confirmed the news.
In the hauntingly iconic image, which won the amateur photographer who
took it the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography, firefighter
Chris Shields came to symbolize all the first responders who descended
on the bomb site, while Baylee represented the innocent victims who were
lost that day.
But for Aren, her daughter was more than a symbol.
“I get that (the photo) made its mark on the world,” Almon said. “But I
also realize that Baylee was a real child. She wasn't just a symbol, and
I think that gets left out a lot.”
A firefighter thrust into the spotlight
The Oklahoma City firefighter in the photograph was Chris Fields, who
had been on the scene for about an hour when a police officer came “out
of nowhere” and handed him Baylee's lifeless body.
Fields swept the infant's airway and checked for any signs of life. He
found none.
He said the iconic photograph was snapped as he waited for a paramedic
to find room for the baby in a crowded ambulance.
“I was just looking down at Baylee thinking, ‘Wow, somebody’s world is
getting ready to be turned upside down today,'” Fields recalled.
While he tries to focus more on being a grandfather than politics,
Fields said he has little doubt an attack motivated by radical political
ideology could happen again.
“I don't worry about it, but do I think it could happen again? Without a
doubt,” he said.
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A display at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum shows
items from the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City on March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
A badly injured child still scarred
One of the youngest survivors of the bombing was PJ Allen, who was
just 18 months old when his grandmother dropped him off at the
second-floor daycare. He still bears the scars from his injuries.
Allen suffered second- and third-degree burns over more than half
his body, a collapsed lung, smoke damage to both lungs, head trauma
from falling debris and damage to his vocal chords that still
affects the sound of his voice.
Now an avionics technician at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma
City, Allen said he had to be homeschooled for years and couldn't go
out in the sun because of the damage to his skin.
Still, there doesn't seem to be any self pity when he speaks of the
impact of the bombing on his life.
“Around this time of year, April, it makes me very appreciative that
I wake up every day,” he said. “I know some people weren’t as
fortunate.”
A son who didn't get to know his father
Austin Allen was 4 years old when his father, Ted L. Allen, a U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development employee, died in the
bombing. He never truly got to know his dad.
Although he remembers snippets of riding in his dad's truck and
eating Cheerios with him in the morning, most of his memories come
from friends and family.
“It's just been little anecdotes, little things like that I’ve heard
about him over the years, that have painted a bigger picture of the
man he was,” Allen said.
Allen, who now has a 4-year-old of his own, acknowledges he's
troubled by the anti-government vein in modern-day politics and
wonders where it could lead.
“It's such a similar feeling today, where you have one side versus
the other,” he said. “There is a parallel to 1995 and the political
unrest.”
A worker's life changed in an instant
Dennis Purifoy, who was an assistant manager in the Social Security
office on the ground floor of the building, lost 16 co-workers in
the bombing. Another 24 customers who were waiting in the lobby also
perished.
Although he doesn't remember hearing the explosion, a phenomenon he
said he shares with other survivors, he remembers thinking the
computer he was working on had exploded.
“That's just one of the weird ways that I found out later our minds
work in a situation like that,” he said.
Purifoy, now 73 and retired, said the bombing and McVeigh's
anti-government motives were a reality check for an innocent nation,
something he said he sees in our society today.
“I still think that our country is naive, as the way I was before
the bombing, naive about the numbers of people in our country who
hold far right-wing views, very anti-government views,” Purifoy
said. “One thing I say to tell people is ‘conspiracy theories can
kill,’ and we saw it here.”
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