Thanks Anthony, The truck explosion was probably the worst incident. As for the rest of them, it would be about as long as War and Peace. Here goes.
In 1989 I was working with Emergency Management. My work required me to go to incidents that involved the need for coordination of all the aspects of the mangement of potential mass casualty incidents. That day I was on the way to the office to pick up some paperwork. I was on the highway when I saw a hugh fireball the dispatcher called me right away and at that time we only knew an explosion had happened. I got there within about 10 min. The first thing I saw was 10 or 12 houses on fire 8 or 9 cars on fire and noticed a tanker sticking out of the top of a 2 story apt. People started to get out of the cars that were on fire and there was smoke coming off their bodies. People were screaming "help me". Having worked as an EMT for so long and seeing the extent of the burns I knew right away they were just walking dead. Any mass casualty incident involves triage which means looking at the injured to determine which ones have a greater chance of surviving. With all the chaos and lack of emergency personell on the scene at that moment. The priority was the house fires and rescue of victims in the houses. My job on this one was to decide where resources should be used to save lives. The people that were burned the worst came next to last, right before the dead.
After almost 12 hours we had to start the walk-thru of the houses and marking off where the bodies were. We were still missing 3 or 4 at that point. In the meantime it was also my job to track down food and supplies for the emergency workers on the scene. It was rough looking for bodies and trying to take care of the people who had done the dirty work. In one house we found an elderly lady who was dead, the house was burned pretty bad and something was crunching under my feet but I couldn't make out what it was. A neighbor of the lady told us she had 20 or 30 cats which was what the crunching turned out to be, still don't know why it bothers me and sometimes I don't know if I was actualy in that house. I was the one who found the driver of the truck about 200 yrds from the explosion. All that was left of him was from the chest up and he was missing an eye and most of his skull. The people from the cars that were burned so bad lived about an hour or so and because of triage didn't make it to the hospital B/C there were too many other injured that were salvageable (hate that word)(souls on board too). During the time the severly burn lay'd out there they screamed the entire time. Paramedics tried to give them something for pain but they were burned so bad they couldn't get an IV line in or find enough muscle tissue for IM injections. I missed most of christmas with my infant daughter and family B/C of all the paperwork and debriefing scene workers. The times I've had flahbacks I seem to only be with the burned ones with them begging for help and I vividly see their eyes, smell the burned flesh and feel helpless to do anything at all. During the therapy the doc. brought up the fact that I was medicaly trained and that might be most of my problem B/C I had to leave them and go on to "Manage the scene" rather than immediately help them. Even after all this time I don't drive by that area. I can always find ways around that. (should I drive through there ?) Rationaly I know I'm not the only one severly effected by this but I feel like I was the only one there. A few years after that I met the son of the truck driver and he wanted to know about his dad B/C the funeral was closed casket. I told him I just sat at the command post and didn't go out. For years after the incident I had to lecture about it at the police and fire academy (4 hour lecture) after a couple of years I refused to do it. There is still so much I don't remember. I went thru EMDR and other stuff for about a year every Wednesday. God I don't want to do it again but the Doc I'm going to says we should. I'm sure he's right but I don't want to go back to that scene. That's about all I can think of to write for now. The other stuff is so long I think it would make a thick book.
Again Anthony Soooo much thanks.