Add this to the images in your mind!
Jerusalem Post 09. 20, 2002
'I saw people jump from the windows'
By
TOVAH LAZAROFF
When the smoke cleared from the explosion, Jacob Heyn saw a heart still beating lying on the sidewalk amidst the shattered glass. "There was no body, just a heart beating. I didn't think such a thing could happen. But I saw it and others saw it," he said.
At about 1 p.m. yesterday the 87-year-old had been standing with his son in front of a bookstore his family owns on Rehov Allenby in Tel Aviv. The store was filled with displays of children's books. It was a normal day on a busy street. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary until a suicide bomber blew himself up while standing on the stairs of a No. 4 Dan bus as it moved down the street. Five people were killed, including the bus driver, and more than 60 were wounded.
"Glass shards fell on me," Heyn said. "I was covered with smoke and dust. I looked to see what happened to me, but I was not hurt. The bus continued to travel a short distance. A body was lying on the sidewalk. Later someone told me the man was dead. I saw a man walking covered with blood. Then the ambulances came. I went into the store. People there were frightened. They were hysterical and crying."
Police suspect that the bomber blew himself up upon entering the bus because the driver became suspicious. One witness who believes she saw the bomber said, "I was surprised, because he was wearing a long black blazer that was buttoned up on a hot day. I said to myself, 'There is a suspicious man on the bus.' And then there was an explosion."
Zvi Rabinovitch who runs an electricity
store near by said, "I
saw people jumping from the windows."
Devorah, who lives on the street, said, "The bus driver was
slumped in his chair with his head against the front window,
there were pieces of flesh all around and people were
screaming."
The blast scorched the bus and blew
out its windows. One man
with blood over his bare chest was wheeled away by
paramedics. Another man sat on the sidewalk, crying.
Roni Rejwan said he entered the bus and saw many of the
wounded and bodies. "I took off my shirt and used it as a
bandage to help them," he said.
Yaffa Avrahami, 56, said she had taken a break from work and was standing outside when she saw the bus. "People yelled, 'Help me! Help me!' One woman was banging on the window trying to get out. I wanted to help, but I couldn't. That is what hurts me. I tried to move, I couldn't. It felt like my legs could not hold me. All of a sudden I fainted," she said.
She woke up in Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital, where she lay on a gurney, still shaking, waiting for her husband to call.
Also lying on a gurney and wearing a hospital gown, Carmit Ovadia, 24, held up a silver Star of David her mother made for her. "This is what saved me," she said. "God watched over me because of the necklace." There were still streaks of blood on her bare feet.
She had been on the No. 4 bus for several stops. "I was getting ready to get off, so I went to the front of the bus," she said. "I was standing near the door. The bus had stopped by the light. Suddenly there was blood and glass everywhere. The bus was black and smoky. I understood there had been a terrorist attack. I was still standing. People were grasping at my arms and legs. They were wounded. They didn't want to let me go. I was trying to escape, but they held me back. A man outside yelled at me to get out. I said, 'I can't, they won't let me go.' He helped me escape through the window."
She lay on the sidewalk. Someone
gave her water. She called
her mother and told her she had been in the attack. She was
wounded slightly from the flying glass.
On the table next to her, she kept an inch-long, thick green
shard. "It was still stuck in my clothing when I got here,"
Ovadia said. When her mother arrived at the hospital, she
immediately put her hand on Ovadia's necklace and said, "This
is what saved you."
Among those who raced to the scene to help was Boaz Shabu, who lost his wife Rachel and three of his sons in a terrorist attack on Itamar in July. He had been visiting one of his sons, who is still hospitalized at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, when he heard of the attack. He immediately jumped into his car and raced to the scene to help.
"I carry a first aid kit with
me," said Shabu, who volunteers
with the Judea and Samaria Rescue Service. "I saw one man
who had been hit by shrapnel."
Shabu said he was initially concerned about going to the scene
of an attack after his own experiences. "But at the moment I
heard about the attack all I could think about was trying to
save as many people as possible," he said. "Afterwards there is
time for thoughts and soul searching."
Back on the street, several hours later, a crowd had gathered by the site of the attack. Workmen were cleaning up the bookstore, which had lost all of its glass windows. Holes and cracks dotted the window of a nearby piano store. One man stood by the metal police barrier, holding a metal screw from the bomb he found on the ground. More had fallen through the glass into the piano store.
"I was lucky," he said. He had planned to be on the street at 1 p.m. to go to the bank, but had come at noon instead because his boss had to go the funeral of a victim of one of Wednesday's terrorist attacks. Now, he came out of curiosity, to see the site.
A few stores up from the site, Heyn had returned to work. Although the larger book store he opened nine years ago was closed due to the damage, the smaller one he had run for 50 years was still intact. An army veteran, he was disturbed by the attack, but it didn't stop him from his normal routine. Customers stopped by to make sure he was safe. "I come here every day starting at 6 a.m.," Heyn said. "This wasn't the first attack here, and it won't be the last."
Itim contributed to this report.
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