Dallas County
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Visitor recounts 'petrifying' collapse at Cowboys practice 
11:53 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 6, 2009
DALLAS — Cristy Turner, who visiting the Dallas Cowboys indoor practice vacility when it collapsed on Saturday afternoon, said it was a "traumatic" and "heartbreaking" incident.
Cristy said she had never even attended a Cowboys' game before she was invited to the rookie minicamp at Valley Ranch in Irving.
"I just have replayed it a million times in my head," she said.
Turner suffered a fractured rib in the collapse of the indoor practice facility that left Rich Behm, a 33-year-old Dallas Cowboys scouting assistant, paralyzed.
The day after the collapse, Turner described the moments surrounding the incident with tears in her eyes.
"I just went there to have fun," she said. "You watch it and you see everybody petrified and panicked; and when you are in it, it's a completely different story then when you are watching it."
Strong storms rolled into the area Saturday, shaking the structure's indoor lights and walls.
"I saw the fans fluttering back and forth, and then my heart started pounding because I am like, 'This is not right,'" she said. "The next I remember is looking up in the far right corner and I see everything lift up and split open."
Turner said she took off running and found a door, but falling debris knocked her to the ground.
"It hit me and I felt myself getting pressed down to the ground," she said. "And I remember looking straight out and seeing all this steel and the tarp and saying, 'This is it.'"
Turner said she couldn't find a way out.
"I had the back of my head in the mud and I am just trying to breathe," she said. "I am screaming. I am petrified and I am just screaming, 'Help, help, we are trapped.'"
Seconds later, she spotted a slit, Turner said.
"I crawled over there and I got my hand out of it and I was waving,'" she said.
Turner said she was able to rip at the slit and squeeze out.
"That's when I stood up and screamed, 'Help, these people are trapped,'" she said. "And that's when all the football players came running down there and then they got everybody else. Coach Wade got me out and walked me down to the training facility."
Turner said she was impressed at the quick action taken to get everyone out.
"They are my team now," she said. "It stinks that it happened, but they saved me."
E-mail mdiaz@wfaa.com
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