This is some humbling stuff; thank you for sharing your experience.
Back around 1983 I had the privilege of meeting a guy named Ed Homer. Ed was a flight instructor at a small municipal airport and would occasionally fly a few loads of jumpers when we were hard-up and in desperate need of a pilot.
When we first met Ed, he joined us in the bar after the last load, and soon we were fully engaged with our skydiving stories”; typically beginning with “No s__t, there I was, thought I was going to die.” After a while Ed began to tell the story about losing both of his feet; it was an amazing story.
Ed shuttled Alaskan Mountain Climbers in a Cessna 185. As I recall his story, he was flying a plane full of non-climbers, including an in-law or other relative, through a notorious mountain pass and was caught in a severe downdraft. Ed said the aircraft was descending beyond the limit of the vertical speed indicator, with the throttle wide open. The 185 ended up crashing into the side of a mountain.
Most, if not all passengers survived the initial crash, but shortly afterwards the ceiling came down and the weather turned bad. The weather prevented an air rescue and eventually climbers were dispatched to rescue the survivors. Ed told the story of being able to hear a chopper, but the wind and poor visibility prevented a rescue.
Ed said that they didn’t have enough survival gear for everyone in the aircraft and one of the survivors had to use the engine cover as a sleeping bag. It was a number of days before rescue, and as I remember the story, one or more persons died while waiting for rescue. Ed told the story of one person’s passing that was not detected, and the body was frozen into the bag by the time it was discovered. I recall Ed talking about realizing that he would lose his feet to frostbite, and of his efforts to protect his hands.
Ed said “After that experience, I looked at the World through the bottom of a beer bottle for a long time.” He was also quite bummed out about not being able to fly a tail dragger anymore; tricycle gear was OK, though. When he finished his story, he pulled off both of his prosthetic feet, set them on the table and we talked for another hour about his experience with his new feet. Ed walked well enough that you wouldn’t know he had prosthetic feet to watch him.
The next day we duct taped his feet to his legs and took him out for a Tandem Skydive; it was a hoot. More than 15 years later I learned that Ed became a Captain for American Airlines. Ed made National news with his efforts to become the first double amputee to climb Everest. Ed was tragically killed while preparing for his Everest challenge.
Ed was just a regular guy, but an inspiration to anyone that met him. I hope you are able to remain inspired to press on through this personal challenge; it sounds like you are off to a great start. I wish you; your family and the others involved all the best. Good luck, Dean. - djkak
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Topic: 3-8-09 Accident (Read 14626 times)