They decided to evacuate nearby homes — and then heard Sergeant Brocksmith on the radio, calling from the grocery store in Damascus. He told them to evacuate the homes south of the launch complex. They drove east, reached Highway 65, got out of the truck, banged on the doors of small farmhouses and mobile homes, told people to leave at once. Despite the disturbing, early-morning sight of two men in battle fatigues and gas masks standing at the front door, most of the homeowners were grateful for the warning. But one man opened the door, pointed a handgun at them, and said, “I’m not going to leave.” They didn’t argue with him.
Roberts and Green were about a mile north of Damascus when they heard the following exchange over the radio:
“Help! Help me. Help me! Can anybody read me?”
“Yes, we can hear you.”
“Help me!”
“Where are you?”
“This is Sergeant Kennedy.”
“Where are you, Jeff?”
“Colonel Morris, I’m down here by your truck, please help me… my leg’s broke and I’m bleeding.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m down here in your truck!”
Roberts and Green had assumed that they were the only people anywhere near the launch complex. Neither of them had ever met Jeff Kennedy, and they didn’t even know who he was. But they weren’t going to leave him out there. Green turned the pickup truck around and floored it, driving all out, pedal to the metal.
About a minute later, the pickup died right in the middle of Highway 65. It had run out of gas. They got out and pushed it to the side of the road. A passing Air Force truck refused to stop for them, even after they chased it, yelling and waving their arms. The driver of a civilian vehicle swore at them and kept going, when they tried to flag it down. Roberts spotted a Cadillac parked in the driveway of a nearby home, ran over to it, broke one of the windows with a rock, and started to hot-wire the car.
Green was impressed, but not surprised, that Roberts knew how to do that.
A pickup truck approached at high speed from Damascus. Roberts and Green left the Cadillac and stood in the highway, blocking both lanes. They figured: if the truck runs us over, to hell with it.
The truck stopped, and they commandeered it. The driver, Jim Sandaker, insisted on coming with them to the launch complex.
They said, Fine, but get in the backseat.
Green floored it, and the three set out to find Jeff Kennedy.
One moment Kennedy had been looking at the ground in front of the access portal, getting ready to sit on the curb. And the next moment he was soaring through the air, spinning head over heels, like an acrobat from a trapeze. And then he blacked out.
When Kennedy opened his eyes, he was lying on his back, and his legs were pointing toward the sky, propped against a chain-link fence. Fires burned all around him. He screamed and yelled for help. But nobody answered.
After lying in that position for a few minutes, wedged against the fence, something inside Kennedy clicked. The choice became clear: he could get up and go — or stay there and die.
Kennedy pulled his legs off the fence, stood up, and immediately fell down. He saw that his right leg was broken, and the rest of him felt bruised and cut up. His helmet was gone. His face was bleeding. After falling down, Kennedy said to himself, “I am not going to die on this complex.”
Using the fence for support, Kennedy pulled himself up and tried to get his bearings. The launch complex was nothing but rubble and flames. It took a little while, but he figured out where he was. The blast had hurled Kennedy about 150 feet through the air. He’d landed upside down against the fence in the southwest corner of the complex. He decided to follow the fence east, toward Highway 65, and then north, hoping to find the hole they’d cut in it. The fence gave Kennedy some physical support and a sense of direction, but it also imprisoned him inside the complex. He couldn’t climb over it, with a broken leg. Until he could find a way out, he was trapped there amid the fires and debris and toxic smoke.
Every few steps, Kennedy fell down. The RFHCO suit was heavy and cumbersome, and without the helmet, it no longer served a useful purpose. It was slowing him down. Kennedy sat on the ground, took off the air pack, and got his arms out of the RFHCO. But he couldn’t pull the suit off his broken leg. He searched the ground, found a jagged piece of metal, and cut the RFHCO suit off above his boots.
Kennedy walked and fell, walked and fell, tripping over debris, looking for the hole in the fence. From somewhere in the darkness, he heard Livingston’s voice, crying out.
“Oh, my God, help me. Please, somebody help me. Please, God, help me.”
“Livy, I’m going for help,” Kennedy shouted.
Livingston didn’t seem to hear him.
“Oh, my God, help me,” Livingston repeated. “Please, somebody help me.”
Kennedy had no idea where Livingston was. The only sign of him was his voice, calling out.
“Please, somebody help me.”
