Loescher regained consciousness to find himself lying upside down with his legs crushed beneath ceiling debris. Vieira de Mello lay buried in rubble a few feet away, but he had managed to reach his cell phone to call for help. As the rescue team burrowed their way toward him, the diplomat slowly bled to death, becoming one of twenty-two people to die in the bombing. It was the deadliest attack ever on a United Nations facility.
