by Hannah Luce
Just then, the driver shifts the car into reverse. Our saviors are backing away. What are they doing? What in God’s name are they doing?
LINDA’S STORY
My friend Heather had been going through a lot in her life. She’d been diagnosed with MS, which would be a blow for anyone, but especially someone so young and energetic. One day, thinking about how fragile life is, she wrote a list of things she wanted to accomplish, her bucket list. One of the items on the list was shooting a gun, something she had never done. My husband is a hunter, and I was on the rifle team in college, so we offered to teach her.
That’s where we were going that afternoon, to meet my husband after work at a private shooting range in Fredonia, a thirty-minute drive from where we live in Chanute.
HEATHER’S STORY
I almost cancelled our trip. I take a shot once a week for MS, and that day I had trouble injecting myself. The shots hurt, but it’s the cost of the fight, so you work past the pain. That day was different, though. I’m not sure what I did—maybe I hit a nerve, or the bone—but whatever it was, it felt like a red-hot poker searing through my arm when I injected myself. I pulled the needle out, dropped onto my bed, and sobbed. For the next few minutes, I debated whether to just stay there. But as the pain began to ease, I decided that getting out might help take my mind off my aching arm.
When I heard Linda pull into the driveway, I went to the bathroom to wash my face with cold water. My eyes were red and swollen from crying. I hoped Linda wouldn’t notice. I didn’t want to have to explain. Before heading out the door, I grabbed my sunglasses, some Tylenol, and a bottle of water from the refrigerator. I glanced at my watch. We were running about seven minutes behind. We would have to hurry to make our appointment.
LINDA’S STORY
When we finally got going, I headed for the shortcut on the county road rather than take the highway to Fredonia.
We were about halfway there when both Heather and I noticed a plume of smoke on the horizon. She wasn’t familiar with that territory, but I travel the rural route quite often, and it’s not unusual to see small brush fires, or someone burning their harvested field. This smoke looked different, though. It was shaped like a mushroom. Heather said she thought that mushroom clouds formed from explosions. I knew there were oil and gas wells in that area, but I still wasn’t overly concerned. “But let’s go see,” I said. I headed in the direction of the smoke, which led us off the main route to a gravel road I’d never driven before. As soon as we hit the gravel, and the dust kicked up, Heather muttered something about turning around. “No sense getting the car all dirty for nothing,” she said.
I guess my curiosity got the best of me because I stayed the course.
HEATHER’S STORY
We had probably gone a mile or so on the gravel road and we were getting closer to the smoke when, all of a sudden, we saw two people step out onto the road. We were still far enough away that it was hard to make out exactly what we were seeing. One person was wearing black. The other, a nude or tan color, or so we thought. It was odd seeing people there. My friend Linda stopped the car and looked at me as if to say, “What is this?” Honestly, at that point, things weren’t registering. We were encountering something we weren’t expecting, something we’d never seen before, and we didn’t know what to make of it. We had no frame of reference. A little bit of self-preservation kicked in, and I was thinking to myself, “I don’t know what this is, and I don’t know that I want to be here.” I knew my friend was having the same thoughts.
I had my phone in my hand by then. “I’m going to call 911,” I said. I had just begun describing to the operator what we were seeing. “Two people . . . Something’s really wrong . . . I don’t know what happened but you need to send someone . . .” She asked what county we were in. I had no idea, so I handed the phone to Linda so she could explain where we were and, just as I did, I saw the two people coming closer to us. Linda put the car in reverse and started backing up, to put space between us and the forbidding scene playing out. She had backed up only a few inches when the girl put her hand in the air and said something.
“Water!” she cried. “Please! We need water!” She and her companion walked closer to the car, and I could see then they were in no condition to attack us. She was bleeding, and her clothes were ripped and smoldering. He was naked and trying to cover himself. They were not trying to get something from us—to rob us or to hurt us. Something terrible had happened to them, and they needed our help.
I grabbed my bottle of water and swung open the car door.
“What are you doing?” my friend asked.
“I’m giving them water,” I said, stepping out of the minivan and shutting the door behind me.
Austin and I were so relieved when the minivan stopped again and the young woman got out. She looked only a few years older than me. I could see the fear in her eyes as she walked toward Austin and me, holding a bottle of water in her hand.
“What happened?” she asked.
“A plane crash,” Austin choked out.
“Are there others?”
“Three others,” he said. “I don’t think they made it.”
She said her name was Heather, and she uncapped the bottle of water and handed it to Austin. He pointed to me. “Her first,” he said. I guzzled about half the bottle, then she handed him the rest. He tipped the bottle to his lips and drank, but, after a moment, the water dribbled out of his mouth. He tried again and the same thing happened. Austin couldn’t swallow.
Heather told us she had called 911 and promised that help was on the way. “Can’t you just take us to a hospital?” I asked. It was all I could do to get a breath, my lungs just weren’t working right, but Heather said we needed to stay put and wait for the EMTs to arrive. I was frustrated and scared. I sat in the brush by the side of the road, while Heather stood with Austin, asking him questions.
“Who was in the plane?” she asked.
“Five of us,” he said, and proceeded to give her all of our names. “We came from Tulsa. We were on our way to an event in Council Bluffs.”
She asked Austin if he wanted to sit down, too, but he said he couldn’t. He looked gravely injured, yet he was completely calm and in control. He answered every question posed to him and even asked some of his own.
HEATHER’S STORY
He said, “I look bad, don’t I?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know. It looks like you have burns and a nice gash on your head that you can show off to all of your friends, but I think you’ll be just fine.” I ran back to the car to find something to cover him. My friend Linda had a basket of clean laundry, so I grabbed a sheet from it and held it in front of him because his hands were too damaged to hold it himself. I wanted him to have his dignity. A minute or two later, he asked me again. “How bad is it?” He stepped closer to me when he said it this time. I think he really wanted to know. So I said, “Well, it’s not good, Austin, but I think you’ll make it just fine.” He didn’t ask me again after that. He was concerned about Hannah. He wanted to make sure that she had enough water, and that she wasn’t in too much pain and was going to be okay. Hannah kept saying she couldn’t breathe. It killed me because there was nothing I could do. All I could say was, “Honey, I can’t help. I’m so sorry. We just have to wait for the ambulance to arrive.” Without thinking, I put my hand on her shoulder, and she screamed. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “What can I do?” Hannah looked me in the eye. “Please just pray for us,” she pleaded. I put my hand over her and started praying and, when I did, Austin stepped closer, and we all prayed together.
LINDA’S STORY
I got off the phone from the 911 call, confident that the rescue workers knew how to find us, and I walked over to where Heather was standing with Austin and Hannah. Heather was standing closest to Austin, asking him a series of questions to keep him from falling into unconsciousness, and Hannah was sitting on the side of the road. I noticed that her hair was singed and her clothes, what was lef
t of them, were disheveled. She begged me to pull off her pants because they were burning her legs. My heart ached, knowing there was no way I could pull them off . . . they were melted into her skin.
She asked if I would call her father to tell him what had happened. I pulled out my phone and punched in the numbers she recited, thinking, “I don’t know what to say to this man.” When he answered I choked out something like, “I’m with your daughter, Hannah. There’s been an accident but she’s all right.” He asked, “What do you mean? My daughter’s on a plane. Where’s the plane?” I told him the plane was off in the distance, and it was on fire. I said “She’s standing here with a young man.” He asked his name. “His name is Austin,” I said. “Where are the others?” he asked. “There are no others,” I said.
HEATHER’S STORY
It was taking forever for help to arrive, or at least it seemed that way. I had asked Austin the same questions over and over, and I could tell he was getting irritated. What’s your brother’s name? Aubrey. How many siblings do you have? Two. What are their ages? Allie, sixteen. Aubrey, twenty-four. What’s your mom’s name? Mary. How about your father? Monte, deceased. I don’t remember whether he rolled his eyes, or if he even could roll his eyes, but somehow he expressed to me that he was getting annoyed at having to answer the same questions so many times. I could tell how much pain he was in. With the slightest breeze, he shifted from side to side, looking for a way to block the wind from brushing against his seared skin. Who should I contact for you? I asked. “My grandpa,” he said, reciting his grandfather’s phone number. Even with that kind of suffering, Austin had the presence of mind to answer everything I asked, and even remember the phone number. I found myself overcome with feelings of awe and admiration for him.
I was so worried about Austin. The ambulance still wasn’t coming, and he was getting worse. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, and he wasn’t talking nearly as much. I saw such determination in his eyes. He had so much courage. I kept thinking, if he can be resilient, so can I. He was in so much pain. I hated seeing him that way. I was still sitting and I felt this terrible burning sensation on my backside. I shot upright, and when I did I saw Linda getting back into the minivan. I thought she and Heather were going to leave us there, in the godforsaken field, and I panicked. “Where’s she going?” I cried. Heather assured me that Linda wasn’t going far. She wanted to check a nearby road sign to make sure she had given the 911 operator the proper crossroad. I guess it was the child inside me, but I still felt abandoned. Didn’t she see how Austin and I were suffering?
As I was thinking my irrational thoughts, I looked down at my body. “What’s crawling on me?” I screamed. “Get them off of me!” Growing up in rural Texas, I knew the feeling of being stung by fire ants. Now they were crawling all over my body. “Get them off of me!” I screamed again. Heather looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Honey,” she said, clearly perplexed but reassuringly. “Honey, there’s nothing on you.” I calmed down for a moment. Maybe it’s the wind I feel, I thought. I shuddered. My body felt as if it was being eaten alive. “Dear God!” I cried. “Get me out of this damned body!”
Up until then, I had been trying really hard to hold on for both Austin and me, but I started feeling as if I was going to black out. I was afraid that then I would go into shock and die. I thought I remembered Heather saying she worked with kindergartners, so I asked her to tell me a story. I said I needed to stay focused on something so I didn’t lose consciousness. “Look, I need you to help me to keep my eyes open so I don’t go into shock.” I’d start to fade away and I’d hear her shouting “HANNAH! HANNAH!”
“Tell me a fairytale,” I pleaded. Heather said she didn’t know many stories. “Tell me the story of Peter Pan.” I could tell she was trying, but she didn’t even remember that the Lost Boys had encounters with pirates and fairies. I was finding it harder and harder to stay aware. “Talk to me!” I pleaded. “Ask me questions! Anything.” She started telling me about her kindergartners, but I drifted off. She wasn’t a very good storyteller.
HEATHER’S STORY
Hannah started having more trouble. She stood up in the road, pleading with me to talk to her and tell her stories. Suddenly I remembered a story we had read in class a while back. It was a beautiful little story called “The Empty Pot,” in which the Chinese emperor proclaims that his successor to the throne will be the child who can grow the most beautiful flowers from seeds. “A long time ago in China there was a boy named Ping who loved flowers. Anything he planted burst into bloom. Up came flowers, bushes, and even big fruit trees, as if by magic . . .” Hannah’s eyes seared into mine. I could tell she was struggling to stay with me, struggling to maintain lucidity. Fighting not to die. Her body was shutting down. Her knees would buckle, and her face would tighten up, but then she would squeeze her eyes closed and stand up again. It happened over and over again. Her eyes would roll back and she would blink really hard and stare into my eyes, as if to say, “I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE!” I could see the determination on her face, and it was intense. Her will was forcing her body to do what she wanted it to do. I have never seen anything like it in my life.
22
Rescue
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
—PSALM 56:3
I heard the distant bray of sirens, signaling that help was finally on the way. The first ambulance kicked up dust on the gravel road as it sped toward us. I can’t even describe my relief. Only a moment earlier, I was mustering my last bit of strength to stay conscious because I was certain I was going to die. Finally, I thought, stumbling toward the approaching ambulance, its lights flashing and its sirens screaming. Finally, I thought. Finally I can let go. But before I gave in to the darkness, I wanted to be sure that Austin was going to be okay.
The ambulance roared to a stop, and two paramedics jumped out. Just then, the first of a parade of fire trucks and police cars began arriving. Heather asked the rescue workers for more water for us and she was able to scrounge up four bottles and split them between Austin and me. I guzzled mine. Austin tried to, but he still couldn’t get the liquid down. Once again, it dribbled out of his mouth and down his chin. “Please, God, let him live,” I prayed.
I could tell from the faces of some of the firemen that they had never seen anything so gruesome as how Austin and I looked. Our exposed bodies were oozing blood and gore, and our burned skin was shedding off in sheets, leaving piles of clotted gray ash at our feet. They tried not to stare, but I could see from their expressions of shock—or was it revulsion—that we were a sight. I know on a few of their faces I saw fear, perhaps reflecting the terror in my own eyes.
The paramedics took Austin first into the ambulance. He couldn’t move, and they had to lay him on a gurney and carry him. He was a big, powerful boy, and I heard a lot of grunts and groans as they struggled to get him up into the rig. By the time I got there they were already working on him. I could hear one of the paramedics talking to him, while the others ushered me to the back of the ambulance. I was anxious to get inside to try to talk with him, but I couldn’t step up because what was left of my pants, the parts that hadn’t melted into my legs, was down around my ankles, binding them together like a thick rope. When one of the emergency workers tried to help me step up to get inside, I screamed and nearly blacked out. I heard someone shout, “Be careful with her! Be careful with her!” After that, a couple of them lifted me up and into the ambulance and put me on a sideboard next to Austin. I wished I had been able to hold his hand.
I begged the paramedics to cut off what was left of my clothes. I remember thinking that I was glad my pretty blouse had been spared because it belonged to my mom and was one of her favorites. Of course, I must have been confused, because my back and right arm were scorched, so there was no way the blouse had survived. A female EMT stripped off my clothes, but my socks and shoes were melted to my feet, and they were still burning me. “Please!” I cried. “Please get them off!” I felt for
my necklace, a crystal heart with the word LOVE written across it. As I did, I noticed the smell of my own burning hair, and I felt the top of my head, trying to gauge what was left of it and whether it was still on fire. When I touched my head, clumps of my chestnut hair fell off onto the pillow. I quickly pulled back my hand. “Okay,” I told myself. “I can’t touch my head again or all of it will fall off and I won’t have any hair left.”
“Austin,” I whispered.
“Austin? Are you okay?”
FIRE CHIEF DUANE BANZET’S STORY
Our department was dispatched to an airplane crash in rural Altoona, Kansas. We responded with an ambulance and two fire trucks. I also requested mutual aid from the Chanute Fire Department, Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center Emergency Medical Services, Fredonia Regional Medical Center Emergency Medical Services, and an Eagle medical helicopter.
A Kansas Wildlife and Parks game warden officer, Bob Funky, was just a few miles away when the 911 call came in. He was the first to arrive on the scene and he found Austin and Hannah, both of them badly burned and nearly naked, standing alongside the road with the two women who called in the emergency. The women were holding a sheet in front of them to shield their nakedness.
Officer Funky then drove through the cornfield to the burning plane. There, he discovered the bodies of the other three. Garrett and Luke were still inside the plane. Stephen’s body was outside, near the portside wing. He was less burned than the others.
I got to the field just as Hannah and Austin were walking to an ambulance. In my twenty-five years in this line of work, I have never seen anyone who was burned as badly as Austin and still alive, let alone able to walk. The only part of his body that appeared to be spared was his eyes. I prayed to God. “Please help us.”