Nicole Flockton

Be whatever you want to be.

22 January 2010

Life Changing Events

Over the last two days I've watched two amazing documentaries.

The first one was called "Brace for Impact". This was about the plane that landed on the Hudson River in New York last January. What an amazing story. I want that captain to fly every plane I go on. All I can say is I think the higher being had something in mind for every single person on that plane, something that I wonder whether the passengers have yet to figure out? Some have and perhaps some others are still searching for a meaning in being on that plane on that day.

The whole incident was just one of those freak things. The flock of birds flying right in the path of the plane. The Captain and First Officer who were in charge of the flight. The weather. The Captain's ability to keep the plane nose up and wings dead straight are, ultimately, what saved the lives of all those people on board.

Seeing the footage of the plane landing on the river was beautiful in it's weirdness. To hear what the people on the plane were thinking as they experienced the event. To hear what the lady in first class heard, the onboard computers, saying 'pull up terrain. Pull up terrain." I don't think they will ever leave her mind. To hear the woman say that, that was it. Selling clothes didn't matter any more, I'm meant for better things, I'm meant to help others and having the courage to follow through with her convictions and changing her career. The Captain hearing the voices of the flight crew saying, 'Brace, Brace, Brace, keep your head down" knowing they were frightened but were on the same page as him.

Even the man who saved those lives, what impact did the event have on him and his family. All things that to me, a person who was on the other side of the world at the time, knew nothing about. Truly amazing show.

The second documentary I watched was "Mega Tsunami - 5 years later". This was about the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. This was gut wrenching to watch. To see actual footage of the waves was amazing - I'd never seen any of that before. I remember the day well, not because of the event, that come after. But because I played a game of Super Golf with my family in our, at the time, annual 'Tommo' event. I won it with my brother.

I can honestly say I didn't know too much about it until the next day. Don't know why I didn't see any news that day but it was at least a day later that I heard about it. To actually see the footage today when I watched it, was mind blowing. I really, really had no concept of just how devastating it was. Maybe because my daughter was 2 and I didn't want her to see the footage, I don't know. All I know is, today it made me cry.

So many peoples lives were changed, by amazing stories of survival, one couple caught up in the hotel and then, after being tossed and bashed and battered about, pop up, literally, in the middle of the ocean. As the husband of that couple said, when they got to the hospital and he didn't know if his wife would walk again, it was nothing compared to the bodies on the ground covered with blankets. My wife may never walk, but we were alive and we had each other.

Lives were changed by the death of loved ones, children, mums, dads, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives. The image of the couple just mere metres from safety, unable to reach the arm leaning out and then swept under and away by the deluge.

With something as tragic as this there is the guilt one suffers for surviving. The mother surviving when her daughter was ripped from her arms and she doesn't remember how or when it happened. The brother that survived when his sister didn't. The person leaning out to save the couple but unable to reach them. That is something no one could ever understand, unless they lived through it.

How many romances came about from these tragic events? Survivors getting together to help each other and then finding love. It does get the mind wondering, but not just yet. For me, at the moment, I feel it would be a little disrespectful to those that have suffered. May seem silly as I don't know those people and they don't know me, but for me it's something I must do.

JN

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