I Think About It All The Time.

As Oklahoma City tries to dig itself out from this tragedy, the most inspiring sight has been that of rescue workers heroically battling the increasingly long odds. Last week, for some, the strain started to show. Red Cross workers offered counseling sessions for rescuers, many of whom had no preparation for what they found inside the building. Tony Lippe, a nurse in the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department, told reporters that he was haunted by nightmares of 2-year-old Colton Smith, whose body he had found barely alive in the first moments after the blast. “It was like a final breath,” said Lippe, 27. “I say whimper, but it was more like a wheeze. One solid breath, and that was it. That kind of put me in shock, and I just sat there and held him.” Like a number of the rescuers, Lippe has sought therapy to help deal with the memories. “I kept seeing the little boy’s face and seeing my son and started questioning myself,” he told reporters. “How would I have handled that if it were my own child? It was just guilt–like, God, we should have gone here and gotten in where somebody might have been alive.”

Inside the building, where rescue workers carved through blocks of concrete with hydraulic saws and teams of dogs hunted for bodies, powerful winds-it’s tornado season-made conditions uncomfortable as well as dangerous. Despite the cool weather, the bodies were starting to decompose; when they dug out a corpse, firefighters said, they could smell the stench. “The terrorism aspect is what’s hard to handle,” says L.A. County fire fighter Richard Diaz. “It’s not Mother Nature.” On Sunday came news that Rebecca Anderson, a nurse hit by a piece of falling debris during the rescue effort, had died. Four days later rescuers had to retreat when slabs of concrete shifted precariously. At the end of their shifts, local firefighters as well as the 11 federal emergency crews also manning the operation attended debriefings or stress counseling sessions. “I didn’t think anything was bothering me,” says Oklahoma fire-fighter Tim Brown. “But I knew I wasn’t sleeping.”

The town has extended its gratitude to the rescue workers. The local restaurant association has provided meals, and last week the governor’s wife placed a rose on the pillow of each firefighter’s cot. Before his Friday-night shift, Robert Billig returned the gesture of good will. Along with five colleagues, he brought stuffed animals to some of the young survivors in Children’s Hospital. As he brought a stuffed monkey to Brandy Ligons, he found her out of the intensive-care unit and able to sit up in bed. In a week of unremittingly bad news, here was a reason for the fire fighters to keep up their unreasonable hopes. For Billig, it was a needed bright spot. As he said, “We haven’t had a whole lot to smile about in the last week or so.”