Your Experience

Carol Fink shared her story with us. She writes:

The explosion was four days before my twelfth birthday, I have always felt lucky to have been able to celebrate that birthday. I was one of the many children in the State Theater at the time of the blast. I have always been told that I was the only one injured in the theater. Or, very possibly, the only one injured badly enough to need medical attention. As time has passed my physical injuries are not a large part of my memories.

I went to the movie (Stay Away Joe with Elvis Presley) that day with my friend Helen Whitaker. We first sat in the middle section of the theater, but moved to sit with other friends on the west side. The movie had just started when the thunder began. My first thought was that it was just another sonic boom that was frequently heard back then when jets from WrightPatterson would break the sound barrier. The theater went dark, and I heard someone yell: Run. In the aisle, the movie goers were compressed tightly, moving rapidly, but no pushing or shoving was evident. There was not a sense of panic it was, as has been described many times since, like a school fire drill.

Once outside we found confusion. To the west was solid smoke, so we ran east. I didn t realize my legs were covered with blood until we stopped a couple blocks down from the theater. We stopped at a phone booth and friends called my parents. We were probably lucky to get through as the phone lines were quickly jammed with calls. Shortly an ambulance pulled up and I was encouraged to go to the hospital. I remember saying that I was waiting for my parents and just wanted to go home. I was convinced to go, and my friends would wait for my parents.

At the hospital I was given a chair, and awaited treatment. I was not high on the triage list so I waited quite a while in the ER. My parents could not park close to the intersection where my friends waited so they had to run up the sidewalk that was totally covered with broken glass. My dad had just gotten a cast off his ankle that he had broken that winter, so he had a hard time keeping up with my mom. They found my friends and were distressed to find out I had been taken to the hospital. I think my friends did assure them I did not have real severe injuries. But, of course, as any parent, they would not have relief until they saw me. They found me in the ER.

After a lengthy wait I was treated in a broom closet. My injuries kept me at home for a couple of weeks, and I continually heard stories about what was happening downtown and in the community. I remember well the first thunderstorm that occurred after the blast. I awoke to a very loud clap of thunder and immediately jumped from my bed screaming that the school across the street had blown up. I actually went into shock with the fear. For quite a while after that I was terrified of thunderstorms. It was six months before I went to see another movie, and I still have not seen Stay Away Joe.