A firefighter and an FBI agent rushed into the collapsing Palm Springs fertility clinic to save medical records and embryos after a maniac detonated a car bomb outside the facility Saturday, killing himself and wounding four others.
The bombed-out American Reproductive Centers building had not been stabilized and appeared to be on the brink of collapse when the pair of heroes climbed over the rubble to make sure the embryo cooling systems were still active, according to Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills.
“They go into a building that was collapsed…It wasn’t safe, but they went inside,” Mills told The Post.
Palm Springs Deputy Fire Chief Greg Lyle and FBI Special Agent Chris Melzer ventured into what had been reduced to a blackened shell — as the clinic’s remaining walls ominously buckled under their own weight — after Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, detonated a car laden with explosives.
“They’re heroes,” Mills said. “It’s because of them expecting mothers didn’t lose their dream of starting a family.”
The blast was so huge that one local reported feeling the reverberations seven miles away.
“I thought it was a mini-earthquake. Things were just vibrating,” Addam Westfall, who was at his home in the town of Cathedral, said.
Miraculously, the blast did not destroy the embryos stored inside the American Reproductive Centers clinic, but even a momentary disruption of the refrigeration system could have destroyed them, Mills said.
Likewise, the destruction of clinic records in a collapse or fire could have dashed the hopes of parents who had spent months and tens of thousands of dollars trying to have a baby.
Lyle and Melzer were able to retrieve the records without any loss.
The explosion ripped through two other structures and shattered windows of buildings three blocks away.
Authorities have not determined how Bartkis, who is former military, constructed the bomb, but they believe he acted alone and that the clinic was simply the nearest “target of convenience,” according to Mills.
Bartkus allegedly held pro-death or “pro-mortalist” beliefs and condemned bringing people into the world without their consent – apparently to spare them from future suffering.
“Understand your death is already a guarantee … All a promortalist is saying is let’s make it happen sooner rather than later … to prevent your future suffering,” Bartkus allegedly wrote on a web page published before the attack.
Authorities have not yet verified the authenticity of that web page.
On Saturday, FBI agents swarmed his home and evacuated the neighborhood in the town of Twentynine Palms, declaring it a “blast zone” over concerns that he could have left explosives behind, ABC7 reported.
The next day, tactical teams, armored vehicles and bomb squad units in full gear were still milling around Bartkus’ modest house in the small desert town, The Post observed.
Likewise, an FBI mobile command center had been set up outside American Reproductive Centers.
Police found two rifles — an AK-47 and an AR-style rifle — along with ammunition next to the exploded vehicle, according to an internal briefing obtained by the LA Times.
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