Survivor of 1998 bombing of embassy in Kenya says there's life

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The United States was a refuge for Rosemary Bichage, a haven where she would reclaim the life that terrorism suddenly took from her.

She had no idea the terror would strike again, so unexpectedly and so close.

"They are not giving up. They can hurt anybody. They can hurt anybody," Bichage said of Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

When Bichage, 45, turned on the television, she was taken back to 1998 and the U.S. Embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, her home.

"I saw flames and fire and buildings collapsing, like the one which collapsed in Nairobi," Bichage said. "It looked like hell. Fire, people running and trying to get to safety."

Bichage immediately thought of Osama bin Laden, the suspected terrorist mastermind. Four of his alleged associates were convicted in May of the Nairobi bombing that killed 219 people, including 12 Americans, and changed the lives of Bichage and more than 5,000 other survivors.

Bichage doesn't remember the tragedy of Aug. 7, 1998 -- just the trauma that followed.

"There's life after tragedy. You don't give up," she said. "Giving up would be like telling God he was wrong to give you back your life."

The blast in Nairobi rocked the nearby Cooperative Bank of Kenya, where Bichage worked as a credit manager and was just beginning her day. The last thing she recalls is switching on her computer. After the explosion, she was found stories below, lying on burning, collapsed debris.

In the chaos after the bombing, Bichage's husband, Chris, combed the city looking for her. He found her that night, unconscious in a hospital. She was so disfigured he could identify her only by her clothing and earrings.

More than 30 surgeries

Along with burns over 60 percent of her body, Bichage had suffered a brain injury, a ruptured liver and spleen, a fractured leg and broken elbow. It would be nearly four months before she awoke from a coma.

Since then, Bichage has been on a difficult road to recovery that brought her to Kansas City in 1999. She sought treatment from doctors at St. Luke's Hospital for an infected right leg, which eventually had to be amputated. The surgery was one of more than 30 for Bichage.

"Everyday of your life, you look at your past and see how much you lost and you cry," Bichage said recently in a lounge at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she is a master's degree student in history. "But that doesn't stop you from doing the things you really need to do."

One of those things was enrolling this fall at the university, which she attends with her twin daughters. Bichage, who plans to return to Nairobi when she completes her studies, said she needed to reclaim her life and somehow restore the self-worth that the bombing and resulting scars have stripped from her.

"I went back to school to revive and to revitalize my brain, and also to get away from it all and be in an academic setting to help me forget the bad things that have happened in my life," Bichage said.

The diminished self-worth Bichage has experienced is common among survivors of the Nairobi bombing, said Dr. Sobbie Mulindi, who still counsels bombing victims at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi.

Mulindi said it's difficult for victims -- many of whom lost their sight and limbs -- to accept that they'll never be the same again.