Posted on 07/22/2005 11:31:57 AM PDT by mykdsmom
Emily Benton, left, and Katie Benton, right, both seated, are all smiles with Duke Hospital staff, background, including Duke surgeon Dr. Gregory S. Georgiade, upper right, as they were about to hold a press conference this morning in the Duke Children's Hospital lobby. They were slated for release to go home with family to Tennessee later today.
DURHAM -- The two sisters from Tennessee injured in the London bombings will leave Duke University Medical Center today with plans to use the limelight cast their way to talk about how their Christian faith carried them through the ordeal.
Emily and Katie Benton, college students from Knoxville, Tenn., told reporters today that they have yet to harbor hatred for the terrorists who blew up three London subway cars and a double-decker bus on July 7.
"So far I haven't had a moment of anger toward the bombers," said Katie, 21, an aspiring veterinarian at the University of Tennessee. "I really feel pity. For somebody to be so lost and so misled to think that that was anyway productive, it just kills me that somebody is that misled and that misinformed and could possibly think that that kind of senseless violence does anything positive whatsoever."
The sisters have been at Duke since July 10.
They were only 10 feet away from a bomb that exploded in a subway car just outside the Edgware Road station. It was their first full day together in London for what was to be a weeklong vacation.
After a series of mishaps, including Emily being awakened by an alarm clock that fell out of the bunk bed above her, the sisters had set out for a day of sightseeing. Their destination was the Tower of London. But they had already gotten on the wrong train once and were not sure they were on the right one when they descended into Edgware Station.
"We just had time to sit down and the train just took off," Emily, 20, said. "We're sitting there and the next second everything was black."
Shrapnel and glass flew through the air. The sisters thought they were on fire.
"I felt like I was being electrocuted," Emily said. "I thought I was going to die."
Once the dust settled and the two realized they were alive, they began to take stock. A woman one seat over died. Injured passengers were on each side. Windows were blown out and black soot covered them.
"The first thing we did was just check out each other and see how we were both doing," Emily said. "I didn't understand that a bomb had gone off."
Emily suffered the most severe injuries. She lost skin and bones on her left foot and had a fractured right hand. Shrapnel wounds on Katie's right foot exposed tendons and bones. Each had an ear-drum blown out and Katie suffered nerve damage in an ear that could result in a permanent loss of hearing.
After several days in London hospitals, Duke helped arrange for a trans-Atlantic transport of the sisters and their mother, who got to their bedside 18 hours after the attacks.
At Duke, they have been tended to by surgeons with expertise in soft-tissue transfer.
Emily has undergone three surgeries -- one major. Katie has undergone two surgeries -- one major.
A team of physicians, nurses and other health care workers have tended to the sisters for the past 12 days. Their caregivers describe the sisters as resilient women who will get on with their lives, turning their experience into a positive one rather than dwelling on the downside of what happened.
They were saddened to learn of the explosions Thursday that sent shudders through London again two weeks after their ordeal. The incidents, though, did not set off flashbacks for them.
"It just seems very far removed from me now," Katie said. "I feel so horrible for the city of London."
Katie, who describes herself as an "obsessive-compulsive journaler," has been taping her thoughts since she has not been able to write. She plans to write a book, she says.
"What I really want to come across in the book is the Lord was sovereign in all of this," Katie said.
Staff writer Anne Blythe can be reached at 932-8741 or ablythe@newsobserver.com.
Ping Please!
I seriously hope Christians come out of this coma soon.
I think I saw this on CNN( the international version, broadcast from London). I saw two sisters on a programme in it, don't know if they were the same ones as here, but it shocked me to see them suffer from apparent Stockhholm syndrome, with one of the sisters feeling sorry for the bombers(!). I am really not sure if they were the same as here, but they had an American accent.
I notice they chose not to be treated in England, but they feel sorry for the bombers.
Typical "so far removed from me" think.
Here's a video link:
javascript:cnnVideo('play','/video/us/2005/07/22/costello.benton.sisters.cnn');
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/22/tennessee.sisters.ap/index.html
If the above link doesn't work, try searching for it here:
http://www.cnn.com/
BTW, you'll have to hold down the 'Ctrl' key after clicking on the link. Or else the pop-up might be forcibly closed.
This is pathetic. It made me sick to see this interview on TV. To think, of the people who really were injured terminally or for the families who lost loved ones. To hear victims so close to the bomb itself say they are not angry, is beyond me.
I was glad to hear that "we prayed for the bombers and their families." That I can understand, for I believe that you should pray for everyone, including your enemies. However, their reason for praying I think is misguided. They think that it's horrible that they thought that way and they feel bad for them. The reason they should be praying is for God to lead the bombers to do the just and right thing. That probably won't happen.
Sorry if I offend anyone by being offended by this pacifist notion of apology. The girls are safe, and that is a good thing, but the idea that it is good to feel sorry for the bombers is wrong. CNN said "Amazingly, they have no hate for the bombers." Amazingly is a postively connotated word. This is not positive.
God Bless the two girls, the rest of the survivors, the families effected, and for those who did not make it, may they find peace with God and Christ above.
I can't help but wonder what she'd say, if she had her mother next to her, and her mother had been blown into 50 pieces.
Me, too.
I was sorry I saw it.
I'm glad I missed it. I'm certain al Jizzera wil carry it 24/7 for weeks.
I honestly think these girls are nuts from too many years of PC, or maybe just in serious denial. What is most PC in our society is, actually, its steadfast denial of evil. We have cultivated moral relativism to such a point that the ones who are being regarded as the injured parties in this attack are the perpetrators and not the victims.
I think anger - in fact, fury - are perfectly in line. The reason the terrorists are keeping it up is because they're not being met with anger and fury. They regard themselves as virtuous and all society - their victims - now seems to agree with them.
What is the matter with us?
"What is the matter with us?"
No, what's the matter with them and all the nitwit brainwashed PC college students in America?
I wonder if they cover-up "Volunteer" on their license plates and write "Collaborator" ?
Political Correctness may well be the death of us all. It is the biggest and most potent weapon in the arsenal of the enemy!
Nope, they just missed you by -><- that much. But that's ok, you can forgive them because you lived. Fiftytwo others were not that lucky.
As a southern boy, I can gaurantee that if they have a brother or male cousins in Tenn, they dont feel the same way. These are the girls in college that wanted to save the whales (Collect the whole set!). One day they will grow up, mature, and become right headed.
Imagine their response if the bombers had been right-wing extremists. We would be hearing about the dangers of "hate" and ignorance.
Excuse me? The only way for them to get beyond this is to forgive and let the anger go. Forgiveness and letting anger go does not mean that someone does not see the danger these people pose to society--and the world. Doing anything other than what these two remarkable young women are doing would be to let the terrorists win.
All they are guilty of is not dehumanizing the enemy, as most at FR have done. They NEVER said they agreed with them, or their cause. I really think Free Republic has gone mad...
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