The Cokeville Miracle
On the 16th of May, 1986, David Gary Young and his wife Doris Young took 154 children and 13 teachers hostage at Cokeville Elementary School in Wyoming and threatened to blow up the school with a home made bomb. This event should have ended in disaster, however this is far from what happened. The only people to die in the blast were David and Doris themselves. This became known as 'The Cokeville Miracle' as all those innocent lives were spared.
As the town of Cokeville is only made up of around 1,000 people, news travelled fast.
Here are the events that took place that day.
On May 16th, 1986, at around lunch time an unidentified woman walked into the Cokeville Elementary School and began going classroom to classroom, informing teachers that there was an emergency in Room 2, and they should take all students there immediately. The teachers, unknowingly rushed to Room 2 with their pupils right away to see what this so called 'emergency' was. Soon the 30 foot by 30 foot room was packed full of all 154 children and 13 teachers. Upon entering the room, all 13 teachers were presented with a piece of paper with quotes from Shakespeare and Socrates. The title across the top of the page read, "Zero equals infinity". Confused, the teachers began questioning what the emergency was.
Standing in the middle of the room was a raggedy, scruffy-looking man with wild eyes, arms resting on a shopping cart threaded with dozens of wires and filled with metal and other material that a witness recalled “smelled like gasoline”. A rope was attached from the cart to the man’s wrist, held there with a clothespin. Directly behind the man were a line of guns. Nine handguns and four rifles to be exact. When people began to spot the guns, the man informed the room that if he twitched, he could blow them up in an instant.
His partner, Doris, began to explain to the teachers and pupils that they had come up with the idea to start a revolution that required each child in the room to pay 2 million dollars. The couple believed that as the town was so small and so religious, and valued the children and their future, they would listen to their demands. Meanwhile, a teenage girl rushed into the Town Hall shouting that her father had taken a large bomb into the local elementary school.
Doris Young, as deluded as she was, attempted to persuade the pupils that this was infact a good thing. And it would be beneficial to their lives in the long run. She said to the children: "Some day you'll be famous for this. You will write about it in your diary's and journals and you'll have a great story for your grandchildren."
The hostage situation continued for several hours throughout the day. In an attempt to calm the children down, the teachers told the children stories, encouraged sing alongs and let them watch childrens videos.As tensions mounted, some of the younger children began to edge towards David Young.
David Young became increasingly agravated and ordered the teachers to push all desks and seats to the edges of the room, and to tape a square on the floor around the bomb located in the middle. He announced, “Cross this line of death and I’ll start shooting the grown-ups. I’ll shoot everyone if I have to!” Teachers called it the “magic square” and told the children not to touch it.
Coming from religious backgrounds, the pupils of Cokeville elementary school formed a circle and began to say group prayers, as they indeed knew what was going on. At around 4pm, David became increasingly irritated and handed the rope to his wife and left the room. She attatched the rope to her wrist and ensured it was set up correctly.
This is where it gets interested.
A pupil in the room at the time, Nathan, explained that at the moment she secured the rope to her wrist, something made him look up. Nathan said he saw.. Angels. " "They were shiny, with flowing white robes. Some were holding hands. They glided down through the ceiling, then hung in the air for a second. I felt totally safe. Everyone seemed to have an angel. They came down next to us. My angel was a beautiful shining woman. It was almost as if she landed on my shoulder. She said, “Don’t be scared, Nathan. Get up and go to the window. The bomb is about to go off.” I did just what she said. Other children started doing the same thing.” Nathan said.
As the children began to pray even louder, and began moving to the edges of the room, Doris also became agravated and out of carelessness and frustration, she accidentally pulled the cord too tight. The bomb exploded prematurely, sending her flying across the room “like a flaming torch”. This should have caused damage of catastrophic proportions, but.. it didn't.
People in the room recalled seeing bright flashes of light and a cloud of smoke. Many of them said they were thrown across the room.
Immediately after the bomb exploded, teachers began feeling their way through the smoke to find the pupils. They began lifting children out of a blown on window and told them "When your feet hit the ground, run." The pupils were met by their parents and were instructed by police and medical staff to stay behind the police line.
David Young at this point had no idea what had happened and ran back into the room with 2 guns in his hands. He found his wife, her body burning in flames and calmly shot her. He then stepped out of the room, pressed the muzzle of the gun under his chin, and took his own life.
When the children finally got to speak to their parents and police, they all recalled that angels had warned them the bomb was about to go off and had advised them to stand near the wall by a window. The children recalled them as 'glowing' and 'beautiful'. The angels assured the children that everything was going to be okay and they were not going to die. Some of the pupils claimed the angels formed a circle around the bomb, holding hands, and stood facing the children to protect them. Others said a large angel stood by David and Doris Young, between the children and the bomb and spread their wings for protection.
Many of the authority figures did not believe the children's stories at first, until bomb squad were called in and found something miraculous.
To their surprise, experts discovered that only one of the bomb’s five blasting caps had gone off. The wires to the other four caps were mysteriously cut. If the bomb had gone off correctly, half of the school would have been blown off.
And the weirdest piece of evidence? When smoke had cleared from the room, blasted into the wall, was the outlines of a large, human like figure, with very large wings. This was the imprint, of an angel.
What happnened in Cokeville on that day, can only be described as a miracle.
