The Cokeville Miracle

by Hartt

  As I ran, I saw kids piling up outside below the window of the room. I don’t recall seeing smoke billow out the window. The kids were being pushed out the windows but were just piling up on top of each other! I definitely remember thinking, Run! According to Brad Nate, he was one of those in the pile, and he remembers hearing someone from behind him yell “Run!”

  Still running south across the parking lot, I saw kids just pouring out the south doors of the school. I remember thinking “That’s a lot of kids coming out those doors!” I believe the doors were propped open, so kids were able to just stream out. I saw them running straight for the fence that separated the schoolyard from the neighbors’ yards toward Main Street. They seemed to be hurdling that tall fence in one stride each. I do remember seeing somebody wearing a bright yellow shirt or something. I wonder now if it may have been a fire fighter boosting them to somebody’s dad on the other side of the barrier. My running legs were on autopilot still, and I may as well have been flying through the air. I was definitely not conscious of my own efforts in running.

  Moving across the asphalt of the parking lot, I remember the same voice inside my head (my own voice, not someone else’s) that had said the words, “The bomb!” was now saying, “I’m alive!!” The moment I made that realization, my legs were suddenly back in my awareness. In other words, I felt like I had to consciously put effort into making my legs run and not trip myself. I think whatever or whoever had been helping me through the ordeal was releasing me back into my own power. It was as if it was saying, “You’re okay now.” I know that was the feeling I got; I’m not so sure there were any words like that actually spoken to me.

  At about this point, I was approaching the corner of the parking lot, where lots of ambulances and people were waiting. I was surprised to see them; I had no idea anyone even knew what had been happening. I was comforted to know that the outside world had been aware. A wave of EMT workers and others were approaching me, running toward the school. One EMT lady, with the most concerned look she could possibly wear on her face, looked at me as I ran past, and it was understood by both of us that I was clearly okay. I knew I was. And I’m sure I didn’t look burned or black or anything. She had her arms open and was in a bent position as she cautiously approached the school grounds ready to scoop up any child that may need her first. Thinking about it now, I wonder what on earth they must have expected to see when they heard that bomb go off!

  This is where my memory has a time gap. I know I must have been dazed and walking around, but I don’t know for how long. However long (or short) it was, I remember suddenly hearing the fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Sparks, yell out in her powerful voice, “Fourth graders over here!” She was standing on Steve Taylor’s front lawn on Main Street. Her voice and the fire drill routine brought me back to reality. Her call for fourth graders was the only orderly thing happening, and it instantly snapped me into focus. It was fire drill mode. I asked her what I could do to help. She told me to go back toward the school and tell all the kids, not just the fourth graders, all the kids to gather on that lawn on Main Street and not at the school grounds as we had always practiced. I immediately nodded and walked back across the street.

  Kids and people were everywhere now. This is partly why I feel like I must have had a moment of blackout because I just don’t know how so many had gotten there that quickly; maybe it actually was that quickly! I got to the other side of the street corner and saw two kids who normally had black hair with orange frizzy/curled hair. I had never seen singed hair before.

  I stepped onto the curb and saw John Miller, the band teacher, supported by two EMTs. His eyes were as wide as saucers. Something was obviously wrong, but he was clearly alert and alive. He was on the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the short chain-link fence of whoever’s house that was across from Steve Taylor’s. The wide-eyed look of shock on Mr. Miller’s face alarmed me, but I saw that he was being taken care of by the EMTs.

  I continued on toward the school telling kids to go gather on that lawn. I looked back toward the Taylors’ house. On the lawn I saw a girl being squirted off by the garden hose. Some were pouring pitchers of water on other kids. I was shocked, at first to see a girl with her pants at her ankles in such a public situation, but I also knew immediately why they needed to do that. I turned toward the school again and a kid who had played Ben in the Tom Sawyer play that we were in together just months before, called me by name and asked very calmly if his shirt was on fire or something. I said, “No.” Then I gently lifted up the back of his plaid shirt and saw that the first layer of his skin had peeled away into a white ring the size of his entire back. The new skin underneath was very pink and red. I told him he was burned and to go over there where they were pouring water. We both thought it was strange that his skin was burned, but not his shirt.

  More kids’ faces were blackened as I got closer to the school. These kids must have been inside the room for much longer than the others I had seen up to that point. Next I saw Brenda Hartley, the same girl I had played Legos with next to the “magic square” of tape. She had worn a sweatshirt that day that had a decorated clown face on the front. It was all gray and black with soot. The eyes of the clown were made of large round plastic rhinestones. They had melted, and it looked like the clown was crying. It looked awful. But it is still something to ponder today how it must have gotten so hot inside that room for her glittery-sweatshirt decorations to melt, yet survive the fiery furnace. I told her to continue to Main Street with the others.

  As I continued up the sidewalk toward the school, there were fewer and fewer kids. I figured my job [assignment] from Mrs. Sparks was done. I continued all the way to the corner where I could see the school building. Small explosions and sounds were still coming from the room. Standing on the corner, looking for more kids, an angry, wild man (a father of one of the kids, I guess) yelled out, “I’m gonna go in there and get that bastard!” The cops and other adults were restraining him as he flailed. I knew exactly who he wanted to go get, and I knew it must be a parent of one of the kids. I didn’t recognize who it was, but it scared me. I thought, This guy’s just as dangerous as the one who held us hostage! (Although his demeanor was entirely opposite of David’s.)

  I turned back toward the chaos on Main Street. Even more of a crowd was there by that time. I began thinking I better call my mom and let her know what has happened. Living six miles north of town, I was sure she had no idea what was going on. I needed to find a phone. I went to Steve Taylor’s house, feeling comfortable there because Mrs. Taylor had been one of my Cub Scout den mothers. I used the side door to the kitchen and saw a man talking on the phone. The way he was talking, I could tell he was reporting what was happening over the radio. He began describing “blackened faces and the bomb going off just minutes ago.”

  I said, “Mister, I need to call my mom and tell her where I am.” He closed up his report quickly and let me have the phone. I was kind of surprised he let me have the phone. I dialed and got nothing. The circuits were all busy. (All the phone circuits were overloaded for the next day or so, I think.) I could see that calling wasn’t going to work. I had heard that many of the sixth graders were down at the town hall to be out of the way. I knew I was okay, so I decided that would be nice to go be with my friends and classmates, and not in the chaos on Main Street.

  I stepped outside, onto the Taylors’ porch, which looked over the chaos unfolding on the street in front. In the midst of it all, I saw the white Channel 2 News camera right in the thickest crowd of people. I may have even noticed their satellite truck. I thought to myself, They got here quick! I stepped into the crowd to find someone to tell my parents that I’d be in town hall. I wasn’t sure who to tell that to . . . who would my mom and dad ask to find me?

  As I was now on the far side of the crowd, I suddenly saw my dad as tall as a telephone pole coming down the sidewalk. I saw my sister Cindy and my mom. I yelled out “Mom!” My dad’s arm shot straight up making him ap
pear even taller. I can’t imagine what they must have been feeling as they joined the chaos around them. Had they even known I was alive? What they must have felt! It was a small miracle that we found each other that quickly! They ran to me and I sunk right into my mom’s open arms. She was safety and softness.

  Right then was the first time I had gotten emotional all day. It all sank in at that moment that my life was almost taken. I cried.

  Apparently when I had yelled, “Mom!” the KUTV news camera heard the yell and caught our moment of embrace. This image was repeated in newspapers across the nation and one of them was the southern Arizona paper that my oldest sister, Wendi, saw two days after the event. Still unable to get through to us by phone, the image of me wrapped in my mom’s embrace was the miracle Wendi needed to know that I was okay.

  After so much commotion, injured students had been carted off in ambulances and school buses to nearest hospitals (forty-five minutes away or more), I sat on the lawn with my folks and Rocky Moore. We talked about the miracle that no one had perished but David and Doris. Rocky said it was his “burning bush.” He described getting his belt buckle caught on the windowsill, wondering if David would kill him right there. We strolled up to the corner again to look at the school. Officials were still moving about.

  We drove home (although none of us can remember the trip) and Deseret News reporters followed us. My dad had worked at the “News” years before, and they were welcomed. I sat on the couch and answered questions. The interviews were interrupted when, somehow, a New York Times reporter got through the phone lines to our home, called, and asked my mom and dad permission to interview me. I agreed. All she asked was what my favorite subject was in school! I couldn’t believe it! I have no idea what article was written, but I’m sure stuff was made up because she got no information from that interview!

  Dukes of Hazzard was on TV that night. Other shows with explosions and guns were on, and I’d had enough of that already.

  Saturday brought us into town on that same corner again, looking at the school building. Kids swapped stories. The rest of our friends were out of town in hospitals. My dad was the baseball coach, and we had a game scheduled for that evening. He asked me if we should cancel it. I emphatically said “No!” Life should go on as normal; if there was ever a time we should have the game, it was then. That’s how I felt about it. But there was a problem: my baseball mitt was inside the school building! We got special permission to go in on the far north end of the building, where the sixth grade classroom was. Black smoke streaks stained the ceiling where the vents were.

  The high school gym was opened up to a town meeting of sorts, to hear what psychologists had to say. Smaller breakout sessions followed in other rooms at the high school.

  We held our little baseball game that evening. I played center field. The “Chopper Five” (Channel 5 KSL news helicopter) landed near the adjacent football field. I thought that was so-o-o cool! I wonder what the reporters and out-of-towners thought of that baseball game happening like that.

  Sunday was interesting. There was a Channel 5 news camera in the sacrament meeting where the kids sang “I am a Child of God.” We didn’t hold any of the other meetings that day for church, but we met again as a town at the “New Gym” that afternoon. The crime scene had been shut down at the elementary school, which meant that we could go visit the bombed-out room if we wanted. Psychologists were recommending it as a way to see that we survived it, to show our family where we were in the room at the time.

  Entering the classroom, it smelled a certain way that stuck with me for years afterward. I saw bullet holes in the bulletin board nearby where I had sat playing with magnets when the bomb went off. I saw the strange smoke markings on the east wall but couldn’t make out the shape of anything mystical or miraculous. It was a strange marking on that wall, I could agree with that. We peeked into the small bathroom where we were told David had shot himself. Blood stained the floor.

  We did not return to school for several days afterward. I think it was just short of a week later that they had us back in the school for just a few hours at a time. During this time, my brother took a few days to come and visit me. He was in Colorado when he saw the news on TV and just wanted to be with me. I’m glad he did. We spent a day climbing several steep hills around town in his new 4X4 truck. It was good therapy.

  We moved away from Cokeville, Wyoming, to Provo, Utah, that summer, as we had been planning to do. It was a very different summer and environment from what I’d been used to on the ranch in Wyoming. For summer housing, we lived in a townhouse surrounded by college students, and next door to a pool! I spent hour after hour in that pool. At night, when the college kids were obnoxious and rowdy and playful into the later hours, my parents expressed concern. I told them I actually enjoyed the noise because it meant people were happy, and that meant things were safe out there. It soothed me to sleep. From then on, they would smile when they heard rowdy and happy college kids at night. It meant their baby boy was okay.

  I was feeling independent and confident, so I asked if I could go watch the afternoon movie at a nearby theater. I had no idea what was showing, but we knew the theater had a reputation for showing family-friendly movies. Turns out the movie was JAWS 2! I sat alone in my row, near the aisle, and the exit. A man just down the way, on the other side of the aisle began to make me feel uneasy for some reason. I was in a dark room, JAWS music was playing . . . ! I really don’t recall whether I left the movie theater early or not, but I don’t remember the movie! I talked it over with my mom when I got home. She wisely talked me through the silly fears that had built up inside me about “a man across the aisle from me.” I guess I began to see there could be a lot of scenarios that could make me fearful for the rest of my life because of what I’d been through, but that most of them would be silly and unnecessary fears.

  There were times when television showed other hostage situations. They were difficult for me, and sometimes for my family too.

  I was often asked to speak about the events of May 16, 1986. I was always willing to talk about it, but each time, my body would tremble and shake as I relived the events. I had nothing but good to report about the day, but there was no doubt that trauma remained inside the cells of my body or however that works.

  Today, I have felt very comfortable with the story and in telling it. I have always just told it as it happened and added in all the facts I learned about afterward. I knew it was a miracle that all of us in the building were saved. Some of my friends talked about angels and miracles. And so it was.

  I feel that it helps that I was one of the older kids in the ordeal and that, as a family, we had done plenty of talking about it in the subsequent years as we compiled information: a process I credit for helping me to heal from the trauma of the day.

  ***

  As an adult, I have tried to assemble some lessons learned from this hostage-taking event. Some are lessons about this world and the way God works within it, and some are lessons I learned about myself, both good and bad. These are in no particular order:

  Bad things can happen anywhere, anytime.

  Not all men in scraggly beards are bad, but the eyes can tell you.

  God allows even the most evil men the freedom to carry out evil plans. He does not condemn a man for events that lay in the future even if God may know that future.

  God DOES intervene when we use our freedom to ask for His help. That help is highly customized.

  As a kid, and even more as an adult, it took me a long time to realize I need to pray. I tend to be quick to pray, once nudged, but my own first instinct seems to be to investigate further, rather than praying first.

  Miracles happen.

  Angels are real, and evidently our relatives are among them.

  I have a native optimism. I played; I made the most of it. I was not terribly worried, almost at any point inside that room. But I also could have been more aware of the spiritual things happening around me. I was oblivio
us to them, but at least I was oblivious because I had so much confidence that we’d be okay. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, I just recognize that it is how I seem to operate, and maybe I miss out on some very interesting spiritual experiences because I’m not paying the right kind of attention.

  Being super intellectual is not an advantage, but a child praying with child-like faith is a super power.

  God lives. I’ve noted the irony of David’s philosophy that “God equals nothing,” when this very story proves: “Nothing equals God.”

  The world wants to hear this story. Many, many people want the reassurance and hope that this story provides. Just because it happened to me does not mean I should keep it to myself. I’ve seen wonderful, helpful things happen with the telling of this miracle.

  Anything we do in this life to set ourselves in place of God, we are in error. Asking for His help, though, and submitting to Him, can deliver miraculous results.

  Many of my fellow survivors don’t feel the same yet about sharing. Many still carry deep scars both physically and emotionally. I have learned to understand that others may have very different perspectives on things. It’s good to understand that.

  I truly am not sure if I have forgiven David Young yet, but I have faith that I can.

  Appendix III

  Joshua Wiscombe’s Account

  Cokeville Miracle

  Room #4

  May 16, 1986, became known in our family as “The Bomb,” a day we would never forget. When you’re taken hostage and your life is suddenly threatened, where do you turn for peace? We, the children, turned to God and He sent His angels to save us.