Published: June 26, 2009 10:21 pm      

6-27 OKC watch

Survivor of Oklahoma City bombing shares story

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Priscilla Salyers nearly gave up knitting after she was seriously injured during the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

The 58-year-old said the pain of losing friends and co-workers in the bombing made it impossible to find joy in the hobby she once loved.

But Salyers said she forced herself to return to knitting. She shared her story Friday with visitors at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.

“I didn’t want to knit anymore. I had just lost my joy,” said Salyers, who fell five stories after the bombing and was discovered under a pile of rubble. “But if I didn’t grab back on to what I love, they may as well have killed me.”

Some colleagues at the U.S. Customs Office on the fifth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building where she worked recovered a basket of yarn, covered with debris, and returned it to her.

Salyers said she became motivated to return to knitting after learning other survivors had similar experiences — one man who lost a daughter and a grandson who no longer enjoyed woodworking or a woman who couldn’t start sewing again.

She finally used the yarn to craft a sweater with 168 stars, one for each victim of the April 19, 1995, blast that remains the nation’s most deadly domestic terrorist attack.

The “First Person: Stories of Hope” lecture series will continue every Friday during the summer at the museum.

The goal is to give visitors a real-person perspective on how the bombing affected people’s lives, said Lynne Roller, the museum’s deputy director.