TERROR IN OKLAHOMA CITY : Blast Killed Husband as He Talked on Phone to His Wife

Tina Tomlin was on the telephone with her husband when the line went dead, cut by a bomb that ripped through the federal building.

Her husband, Ricky, was killed in the blast.

“God did trust me and give me the last minute to two minutes to speak with him,” she said. “I thank God for that every day.”

Ricky Tomlin, who worked for the U.S. Transportation Department, had been in Texas the week before, returning home April 13. The next day, Good Friday, the Tomlins went to St. Louis to visit her family for Easter. They drove home Monday night through a rainstorm, then slept in Tuesday morning.

Tina Tomlin always called her husband on her break.

Wednesday, April 19, would be the last time.

“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘You won’t believe it. I’m just so busy. I haven’t even got a chance to look at my e-mail. I still have to run downstairs to take care of personal business.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really.’ ”

Suddenly, she heard a click and the line went dead.

“It was like somebody had pushed a button to get another line, had tried to click in on his line,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘Well, he just got an important call,’ and I didn’t think anything about it. I hung up and called back and the line was busy.”

As she returned from her break, a co-worker with a portable television yelled, “Oh my God, the federal building’s been bombed!”

“I knew instantly it was my husband’s office,” Tina Tomlin told a news conference Monday after the body of her 46-year-old husband had been positively identified.