On April 19, 1995, Mayer turned from an office window where he noticed a Ryder truck parked in front of the Federal building only a split second before the force of the bomb propelled him across the room and into a life he could not have imagined. With serious injuries, he struggled to assist his legally blind boss out of the wreckage, endured over five hours of surgery without anesthesia, and subsequently underwent sixty-one more surgeries to remove shrapnel and repair his body. To retain his livelihood, Mayer returned to work even though he was in great pain, and became the voice of advocacy for himself and other overlooked non-federal employees. For Victims Who Survive: A Story of the Oklahoma City Bombing is more than a story about surmounting the physical and psychological challenges of recovery, it is an appeal for better understanding and advocacy for victims of terror around the world.