(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Facing Death at 11 Years Old. Twice. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2022-08-08
NYT Headline the day after.
In January, 1957, I contracted acute Glomerulonephritis, an autoimmune kidney failure that could have killed me. I spent 2 weeks at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, CA, during which time I watched the much younger patient across the hall from me die of heart failure. I’ve never forgotten his name…Ory Jones. I was devastated when I watched his parents carry his body out of the room.
But that paragraph, as bad as it is, is burying the lede. Later that year, my father, a Navy Chief, was transferred to Barber’s Point Naval Air Station in Hawaii. He moved there first, with the family to follow later. In August of 1957 my mother, brother, and I took a bus to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA, and got onto a C-97 (Stratocruiser) transport aircraft, which made it to the end of the runway before developing an oil leak.
Some time later, we boarded the plane again, which dutifully took off, and 45 minutes later developed another oil leak, turned around, and landed back at Travis.
Many hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, we boarded another C-97 and finally headed for Hawaii. At this point, I was exhausted, and fell asleep on the aircraft.
I woke up suddenly to a bit of a commotion…there were flames coming from an engine. That engine had gone into “runaway” mode, and was running very fast. After some time, it threw its propeller, which hit the next engine over, and another fragment went into the bathroom, which fortunately was unoccupied at the time. Now there were two engines on the left wing completely disabled.
This event occurred at the halfway point of the trip, otherwise known as “the point of no return.” The plane descended to about 100 feet above the ocean, and all of our luggage was thrown out to lighten the aircraft. This process involved opening a hatch in the front of the plane between the seats, pulling out the bags, and then passing them down the aisle like a fire brigade to an open door in the back of the plane. The crew doing this was drenched in sweat, since the plane now had no air conditioning and the internal temperature was over 100 degrees.
During the flight, a nerve wracking phenomenon known as “beat frequency” also terrified me. With only two engines running at slightly different speeds, the sound level went from very high to very low periodically. Every time the level went down, I thought the engines were failing. Later in life, physics courses explained this for me.
At that time in my life, I was plagued by sties in my eyelids, which are infections of the tear glands. They are very painful. I left California with a very active sty, and due to the heat on the plane, landed in Hawaii with a burst sty, which was probably the best thing about the flight….other than our surviving it.
The NYT article about the flight mentions that there was a problem with the landing gear. In fact, the gear was damaged by the propeller, and would not descend. On approach to Hilo, this was discovered, and we had to circle for 45 minutes with very low fuel while a crew member crawled into the wing and cranked the gear down by hand. Yes, that was possible on those planes.
After we landed, we were all taken to another plane for the flight to our original destination….and it was another C-97. My mother could barely get on it, but she had no choice if she wanted to see our father again.
My mother never got on another plane in her life after that experience. I, on the other hand, have flown around the world. With some apprehension, usually. One never forgets what could happen. Nowadays, plane engines are very reliable. But other points of failure have taken over…like software.
The pilot on our flight was nothing less than a hero. Major Tyson had to wrestle the rudder for many hours to keep the plane level and flying, and at the same time managed the crew which did all of the other tasks necessary to save the plane. I am very grateful he was in charge that day.
Even at 11 years old, that event greatly affected my outlook on life. I am continually aware how suddenly life can change, or even end. I am grateful every day to be alive, since I know how my life could have been cut short so many years ago. And I am very happy to be here writing about it now.
Today is the 65th anniversary of that flight.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/8/2115120/-Facing-Death-at-11-Years-Old-Twice
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
