My husband flew in from Tampa last night and thankfully beat the massive snow storm hitting the east coast. As is normal routine when he travels, as soon as he is on the ground in his destination city and allowed to put on his cell phone, he sends me a text message. Ever since the “Miracle on the Hudson” flight I await these a little more eagerly. Last night the text read, “Just landed. There is a medical emergency on board… We need to remain on the plane until the paramedics remove the passenger.” Five minutes later I got another text from him saying “They just brought in paddles. Feel like I’m on ER.”

He called about 15 minutes later to say he was off the plane and really shaken up; the passenger, seated about 20 rows behind him, didn’t make it. He told me he was going to take it real slow coming home and all he wanted to do was hug the kids.

Apparently what really got him, aside from seeing a body bag being rolled off the plane, was the fact that there were a number of children seated right near the soon-to-be deceased passenger. He said the children ranged in age from about three to twelve and they watched the whole scene, start to finish. Watching those children walk off the plane with their parents, hysterical crying by what they just witnessed, tore my husband up. Not to mention being given a reason to think about his own mortality.

Death happens all around us but we try to shield our children (and sometimes ourselves) by its reality. I wonder if those kids were able to get to sleep last night and I wonder about the lasting images they will have of this passenger dying in front of them. I am guessing things like this don’t happen that often on planes — or maybe it’s just that we don’t hear about them.

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Tags: family & parenting, health & medical // 5 Comments »