9:22 a.m. April 19, 1995: Second Bomb Report in Oklahoma City Proves Erroneous

The disaster response efforts for the Murrah Federal Building blast in Oklahoma City (see 7:00 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995) are interrupted when police are dispatched to a nearby building to investigate a suspicious briefcase that may contain a second bomb. A police bomb squad finds nothing. [The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Police Sergeant John Avera is one of the rescuers who has to leave the Murrah Building because of the bomb report. Avera ignores the bomb warning, trying to help free a woman trapped under huge shards of concrete and piles of bricks and rebar. She begs him not to leave her, but he has to. Before he leaves, he writes her name and her husband’s name on a piece of paper, intending to call her husband and tell him his wife was still alive. But somehow, in the confusion, he loses the piece of paper. He later racks his brain trying to recall her name. He believes her first name is Terry. He is later told that the woman was rescued, but he does not know this for certain. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 168-172]