The horrific New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans took me back in time to the similarities of the April 19, 1995, Murrah bombing in downtown Oklahoma City.

Now at day two we have more “knowns” in the N.O. attack than we had in the OKC case and I can’t help but wonder if that’s because of Louisiana’s outspoken U.S. Senator John Kennedy.

He’s the one who said he was going “to raise fresh hell” if the feds didn’t tell the American people the truth.

Now I’d never heard that expression before, but decided the Republican senator meant business. and there would be “hell-to-pay” if they didn’t.

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why that tall old guy was allowed to stand so close to the podium, and then when they finally let him speak, the senator said what we all wanted, and needed, to hear.

Hats off to Senator Kennedy (who according to the web is not related to the late President John F. Kennedy).

That said, I’ve had chills when watching the news coverage.

Those take me back to the Murrah bombings.

Both attacks were on a Wednesday.

I remember that because I was scheduled to have a 9 a.m. phone appointment with the Social Security offi ce which was also in that building.

The day before had been hectic at the newspaper offi ce, and I knew it would be an all-nighter, so I’d called that Tuesday, and postponed the appointment about my Daddy’s death.

That Wednesday in 1995 I got up early, was still grieving and didn’t turn on the TV until I got my act together. When I did, I saw what was happening in OKC, and woke up my husband.

Our first instincts were to check on our children, especially Bill’s youngest daughter. Amy, who worked at a downtown OKC oil company, was OK. We were unable to get through, and find out she was OK, until that afternoon. The blast had knocked out a window in one of their offices.

Then my editor/reporter instincts kicked in, and it seemed as if I was either interviewing, or writing stories night and day.

Certainly the most diffi cult interview was with HHS 1995 senior David Macy.

“They said they needed anyone with any medical experience,” he said in our interview.

He was in Oklahoma City that April 19 morning on a field trip to Channel 9 with the Audio visual class taught by Debbie Hays.

“I was in hopes one of the TV crews could drop me off at one of the hospitals so I could help, but they didn’t have anyone available.”

He asked Mrs. Hays to drop him off at Baptist Hospital so he could help.

That took an OK from the school, and his mom, Diane, who finally said, “Okay, but be careful.”

David had emergency medical training in the ER at Enid hospitals where there was always “some slack time but in Oklahoma City, it was chaos, but organized chaos.”

After they opened up a waiting room for family in the cafeteria David was sent there.

“We just sorta got stuff for the families — and talk- ed to them … they wanted to talk to us.

“We mainly listened, and assured them patients were getting the best care in the world,” the 17-year-old told me back then. “I think they just wanted to know that we cared, too. Course we did, or we wouldn’t have been there,” he said.

He had a pager contact with Bert Gritz (then-director of Hennessey Emergency Medical Services). Gritz also the fire chief, and he and five other EMTs (Ruby Gibbons and Sharron Schaefer) and firefighters (Tim Riddle and Eddy Roundtree) picked up David from the hospital that afternoon.

Then they went to the bomb site to see if they could help.

“That was the most surprising part of the day,” David said in that 1995 interview. “When we got to the scene — we’d been watching some of it on TV at Baptist — but once you got down there it was such destruction. Those pictures didn’t show anything like what it was like. I can’t describe it!” David, who’d come within 50 feet of the bomb site, also marveled that he “could see the blue Oklahoma sky through the broken windows of the federal building.”

It comes as no surprise to me, and many others, that David continued helping others, and became Lt. David Macy with the Oklahoma City Fire Department. However, I was surprised that he retired from there Aug. 6, 2024, after 24 years, 5 months, and 6 days.

David has also come home to work with Hennessey firefighters, and at HHS where he was a popular panelist during Hennessey United’s Leadership classes for seniors.

Prayers up for all our first responders, bombing victims and families, government officials, and our great country. Also, a big Amen to Senator Kennedy.