April 28, 1995
From CNN Correspondent Don Knapp
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (CNN) -- The stress of the rescue effort has been getting to everyone in Oklahoma City; the families of victims, the workers, and the search dogs.
Again and again they enter the pit, a debris-filled bomb crater where part of Oklahoma City's Federal Building once stood. Searching for life, finding only death.
Tiring, dangerous work with few rewards for these heroic workers, it gets to them. It gets to the dogs as well.
Regina Grochowski is a Search and Rescue dog handler. "And after a while, by the end of the shift, they're a little depressed, just like we are, they're tired... not used to working at night."
They call it cadaver search; looking for cadavers differs from looking for survivors. Beth Barkley, also a dog handler, says, "Although they're trained to find the scent, they're not always visually connected, and when they actually see someone who is deceased, it does have an effect on them."
Some handlers call it stress, others depression. Whatever the dogs feel, they clearly need the reward of success and of finding and saving people. No living victims have been pulled from the rubble since the night following the blast. Handlers try to psyche up their dogs. "We play ball. I let the other guys play with him, try to get him up and jazzed and just having fun and he thinks it's all a big game," Grochowski says.
Finding victims, even if they're dead, serves a need. Jean Hooks, Search and Rescue dog handler: "Finding bodies for burial so people can get over their grieving is extremely important. So even if your don't find them alive, just finding them so they can take care of that situation is extremely important."
Workers wear protective gear. The dogs just tough it out. Among the heroes here, and there are many, dogs stand tall.
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