June 1st, 2010…

I want to start this out by again warning you that at the end of this post, there are graphic pictures, and if you can’t handle that, I’d stop after the words.

I do want to let you know that this story is from what I remember and also from what I have been told. I don’t fully remember everything; I’ve had to piece it together and still today don’t fully have a clear understanding of it.

This story starts out with me having the opportunity to babysit for some family friends for the summer in Anchorage, Alaska. The couple months spent before May 31^st were just seeing doctors and getting my medication ordered and mailing it ahead of me, so I wouldn’t have to use up luggage space. May 31^st rolls around and I fly to Alaska, get picked up by the family, and we stay the night in their condo in town. We woke up the morning of June 1^st and packed up our stuff. The father heads to Home Depot, and I went with the kids and mother to pick up the list of groceries. You see, they only came to town every couple months to get what they needed and then flew back out to their cottage. We met at the place where the plane was and I sat with the boys on the back of the truck bed, watching and waiting for it to be loaded and once it was loaded, we could head on our way to the cottage. We load up, get gas, and then head toward the runway. I had a headset on so I could hear everything being said. Easy peasy right?

Everything went like I said it did above. After loading it with our stuff the father takes the plane over to the gas station. After the plane was loaded with fuel, I loaded the plane through the pilot’s door and had the youngest son in the back with me, the mother got onto the passenger seat on her side with the oldest son up front with them, and the father was the pilot so he got in through the pilot’s door. We’re all loaded and so we start our taxi to the beginning of the runway and as we did that, the father communicated with the tower to make sure everything was a go and do the plane check.

We’re at the beginning of the runway, we were sitting idle there and I was listening to some communication between the pilot and traffic controller in the tower before taking off. We get the green light to go and start to take off. We’re going down the runway picking up speed, the plane touches the ground here and there, and then we take off and are in the air. We’re ascending and as we do, we go over a powerline and the rightwing dips down a little bit. I hear some chatter over the headset and after that, we start to descend. I was told that after starting to descend the back end of the plane hit the roof of a motel, then hitting the road and sliding into an abandoned building, which started the nose of the plane on fire. Next thing I remember after starting to descend is coming conscious and we were already on the ground with the nose on fire. I could see out my window that people were running toward the plane, and so I hit the window and started screaming once I saw the fire in hopes they’d hear that someone was still alive in it. The flames were coming from my right, and so I moved over to the left more in hopes to give me more time and then after that went unconscious again.

I was told that the entire rescue took less than four minutes and if it had taken any longer, everyone would have been engulfed in flames. The plane was at an angle up against the building and because of that, they couldn’t get the pilot’s door open all the way the ground stopped it. Bystanders held the left wing of the plane up so the door could be open, all while the flames grew bigger. Every time they lifted the wing the flames grew and because of that, some bystanders used fire extinguishers to counteract the growth of the flames. The father was the first one out of the plane. I was told that I lifted the youngest boy up to prevent him from further burning and then passed him to someone outside the plane so he could be rescued and then he was handed off to someone else. The same guy pulled me out, carried me away from the plane, and laid me on the street. As I was being cared for by medics, everyone rushed back to the plane to get the mother out, who was also the last one out. She was stuck between the front seat and the dashboard with flames all around her. After a few different people tried to get her and then getting smoke in their lungs, she was yanked from her seat unconscious and carried to the street where the medics took over. The oldest son passed away. The paramedics after making sure we were stable enough to be moved, took us to the nearest hospital.

I was told that I was awake the entire time on the ground and conversing, but the next thing I remember is being in the emergency room in Alaska.

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