CHAPTER 1
An Accident and Axel Tressler Was Born
Virginia Tressler was pregnant and had less than a month to go before giving birth, but she decided to take a commercial airplane flight to see her husband, Ted, who was on a business trip to the Boston and Worcester areas of Massachusetts. Ted had been gone for a couple of weeks when he phoned her and mentioned he would have a few free days from business, and maybe she could come up and they could tour the Boston area. She had always wanted to visit that area since she was a little girl. All those neat stories about the revolution and other events that happened in the area had always appealed to her imagination. So it didn't take much for Ted to convince her to make the trip.
Virginia quickly took the steps to set up the reservations with the airlines, and she would be leaving in a few days. Virginia called Ted and told him the details of the trip, so he could pick her up at the airport. The flight would be from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, directly to Logan Airport in Boston and would arrive at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. She could tell he was excited by the tone of his voice, and after hanging up the phone, she hurriedly completed picking out her outfits to wear in Boston this time of the year. It was early spring, and the weather could be warm or cold. It could be sunny or windy with snow flurries. It didn't matter to her. She knew they would have fun doing something no matter the weather. She felt strong and in no way was bothered by the forthcoming flight or any travel involved for the next week she would be there before returning home for her last cleaning up of the house and the birth of her child.
The days went by rapidly, and she soon found herself going through security at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Soon, she was on the flight and looking out the portal window hoping to make out some landmark in the terrain, but she could only see white clouds below. She knew the plane had been in the air about an hour and a half and was probably in the eastern part of Pennsylvania. She had hoped she would be able to see the land of the Quakers below, but it wasn't forthcoming. As she looked out again, she was interrupted by a surge of the plane as though it was having problems. Maybe it's just bucking the wind, she thought to herself. But then it jolted sideways and back and forth, and she knew there was trouble. She glanced toward the aisle seat and the lady passenger sitting next to her. She was obviously having problems with the flight and now was looking very frightened, with her eyes wide open and gripping the arms of her seat.
Then, just as the plane began another dramatic surge, they were interrupted by the loud speaker and the pilot's voice calmly directing everyone to make sure their safety belts were fastened tight. He stated that they were experiencing rough wind, and he probably would be taking the plane up higher to get above an obvious storm. But soon it became apparent that there were other issues causing the plane to buck back and forth. The pilot's voice continued to give directions, and they seemed more urgent. Then his voice sent chills through her body as he was directing the air stewards to take certain positions and precautions as though preparing them for a rough landing, a landing somewhere in the Pocono Mountain area in the northeastern part of the state. The pilot stated, "We are having problems with the control of the aircraft, and I have signaled the major airports in the area. We are not going to make it to any of the airports. I will try to land as best I can, and someone should be coming for us shortly. Please lean forward in your seats with your hands against the seat in front of you. All seats should be upright now, and your seat belts should be engaged. Do you understand? All seats are to be upright now."
Virginia took the position directed and held her breath. Surely this is a dream, and this thing will come out all right, she thought. She thought of her husband, Red, as he was called because of his red hair, and she hoped that she would live through this and deliver the child he so wanted. The pilot was trying to resolve the problem and correct the path of the plane. People were screaming, and some were crying, and some were praying. It wasn't quiet, and Virginia closed her eyes and prayed that she would live through this and deliver a child to Red. Every so often, Virginia would think the pilot had won the battle, since the plane seemed to right itself, but it was not long before another jerk of the plane occurred. It seemed like he was flying on only one engine, and that one would spit and cause another rough period.
As she pushed against the back of the seat in front of her, she could hear people screaming, crying, and many were praying. It is odd, she thought, that I can hear this above the sound of the plane as it erratically moves toward the earth below. We are in the clouds now, she thought as she glanced toward her left. It shouldn't be long now, and I hope the pilot has found a clearing to hit with his landing gear. She knew his gear was down, having heard and felt it a moment before. She had always listened for this sign that a plane she was on was about to land. Now, she prayed that this was a good sign, and it would end like all the other flights had ended.
Suddenly, there was an abrupt ending to her thoughts, and it seemed like only a second had passed before her eyes flickered amidst what appeared as a short dream. Surely this mess is not real, she thought. The plane is upside down, and I am upside down, and my seat is on my back. She could see the ceiling, and it was actually below her. She shook her head back and forth to make sure she wasn't dreaming, but that pull on her stomach was no dream. It was her big stomach pushing down against the seat belt as she hung there in the air — held by her seat belt. She then began to try to move, but the belt was still holding her in an upside-down position, and her hair was flopping down in her face and toward the ceiling. I don't think I am hurt, she thought, but maybe this is the way it feels when you die or when you are hurt. Maybe the brain shuts off the pain and allows you the freedom of life to still go on.
Virginia hurriedly continued her thoughts to try to make sense of her situation. The belt is pushing against the upper portion of my body, and maybe the child is still safe. She tried to feel her stomach, but her hands dangled downward and were pulled by gravity, making it difficult to do anything. Her extended fingers almost touched the ceiling below. I must find a way to release this belt, she thought. The plane might catch on fire or explode. I must get out of here. How difficult to do anything when your body is upside down and hanging. Fortunately, the seat had caught on another part of the plane and jammed, keeping her up in the air, or she would have smashed against the ceiling, which now was below. If only I can find a way to push the lever on the belt to release it, she thought as she tried to grab the release. Maybe I can do it with my right elbow, which is closer to my waist than my hands and closer to where the buckle should be. I can pull my right arm up and push my elbow toward the left side of my body and keep pushing my elbow against my body, hoping to dislodge the seat belt. She moved her right arm up, so her elbow was by her right hip, and she started to pull it against her body to move it toward the left.
How odd I feel now with the blood rushing toward my forehead, she thought. But then, she put that out of her mind and began pushing her elbow across her body, but it didn't catch anything. She thought that maybe the buckle was higher (or lower when you were upside down), and she pushed her arm downward and tried to swipe it across her body again. No luck, she thought, but maybe I can raise my left hand up to my left hip and move it over and grab my right elbow; then, as it swipes past the buckle, I can grab it. Virginia moved her left hand up till it was on her left hip, and, as she moved it toward the right, she could feel her right elbow. Then she began to pull her elbow along with her left hand back across her body. It sure is hard, she thought, but I can tell my hand and elbow are being rubbed against what feels like the belt. A further move, and she felt the smooth buckle as her left hand touched the buckle and the release. She believed that if she could move a little farther to the left side, then she should be able to grab the buckle release. There it is, she thought. She had hold of the buckle release, but she was scared to pull it, since she knew this would cause her to fall, or it wouldn't work at all. She knew that now she had to take her right arm and allow it to fall downward toward the ceiling to break the fall if the buckle worked. Down went the right arm toward the ceiling. She pulled the buckle release with her left hand, and nothing happened. Maybe I didn't pull it far enough, she thought, but I at least still have it in my grip. She pulled harder, but the release didn't happen. Now she was scared and began to feel claustrophobic. She though, Something is wrong. She slowly returned the buckle release back to its original position while maintaining her grip on it along with the rest of the buckle. This arm feels the best because the hand is not dangling; it's holding onto the belt buckle and taking the pressure off my arm, she thought. She held the buckle and slid her thumb along the edge toward the left, trying to feel what was causing the buckle to not release. Her thumb felt part of her dress caught between her body and the buckle, and she began to scratch at her dress and the buckle with her thumb. Her hand was numb, almost like it was some free part of her body that wasn't under control of her brain, and yet her thumb's fingernail scratched away at the material caught in the buckle. She continued scratching and trying to grab the dress material. Finally, she felt her thumbnail free the material from under the buckle, and the thumbnail pulled the material out of the way. Then she slid her hand back to the buckle release and pulled hard. Suddenly, she fell, but not far, since her right hand cushioned the fall, which was only about a foot off the ceiling surface of the wreckage. She lay there panting and trying to catch her breath and to stop the hyperventilating that had begun when she feared she wouldn't be able to release herself. All of this took about a little over a minute, but, to Virginia, it seemed like half an hour.
Virginia was aware of many sounds: metal against metal, a seat falling, a moan, a crying, and someone screaming, "Help, help!" Thank goodness, she thought, I don't appear to be hurt, but I must make my way out of this wreck and save my child if nothing else. Virginia was lucky in many ways, but now the main luck was that the plane was more or less upside down. This allowed her to crawl along the ceiling that was once above the middle aisle, and now it was below and more or less free of impediments except those that had fallen or had been flung in that direction during the crash. The ceiling was crushed down along with the side storage areas that were always above the passengers' seating. Virginia got to where there was an exit on the right side of the plane, and it was now on the left side of this upside-down plane. She found it was crunched, so that there was no way to open the hatch to the world.
What now? she thought as she moved farther along the ceiling toward the captain's cabin. On her right (which used to be the left side of the plane), there was a window smashed open, and the sidewall beneath the window was ripped outward away from the middle of the plane. She now could see that this was where the left wing had been, and, during the crash, it ripped the wing off and pulled much of that bulkhead away from the plane. The other side also had the wing ripped, but it had crunched the right wing against the bulkhead and blocked any escape. There were people on that side that were crushed by this folding. The right side, where the left wing had been, she hoped would provide her enough room to squeeze through, baby belly and all. Virginia crawled toward this opening, and, as she got to this area that looked like it had been opened with a can opener, she realized she was crawling over bloodied bodies that had various parts of their bodies missing. She tried to keep her eyes focused on the opening to avoid seeing these gruesome sights. As she moved through the hole, she could see other bodies lying outside, and some were impelled against trees. There was a man sitting against a tree with his left arm dangling and a bloody face, but he was alive, she surmised. There were a couple inches of snow on the ground, and she thought she should be cold, but she had no feeling whatsoever. Odd, she thought, that the body seems to be protected against feeling to a great extent after an accident like this. It must be the brain that cuts off many of these functions, so the rest of the body can live for a certain length of time.
Meanwhile, she crawled to a tree next to the injured man and asked him how he felt. "Not the best of days," he replied, "but I am glad I am out of there. We need to move away from this area, since a good bit of gasoline has spilled out of the wings. Fortunately, the left wing is back there some several hundred yards, and the gasoline is spilling out of the wing on the other side of the plane. It won't explode," he said, "but a big fire can start any time now."
Virginia addressed the man, saying, "Before we move away, we should check to see if there is anyone else that has survived and needs help. Also, there is considerable baggage scattered about from the bottom of the aircraft, and we should gather what we can to stay warm. We don't know how long we will be here." She told him her name was Virginia, and he said his was Larry. Larry asked her if she knew that she had a hole in her forehead above her left eye. She reached up, brought her hand down, and was amazed to see the blood from the wound. "I didn't know I had that," she said, "but I guess we are lucky that we don't feel some things at times."
"It doesn't appear to be bleeding now," Larry commented. "So it probably will be all right. Hopefully it isn't severe." With that said, they started to move by walking at times and crawling at times to search the wreckage for other survivors.
"Hello," they cried out. "Is there anyone inside?" They could hear some moaning from the rear of the plane and decided to venture in that direction, remaining scared that the plane's gas leakage might burst into flames at any minute. Larry told Virginia to watch that she didn't cause any sparks as they moved along. Near the rear of the plane, the sounds became louder, and they crawled across some wreckage to where there was a hole in the side of the plane and knelt down and yelled inside. "Is there anyone there?" Then they listened for any sounds, and they heard several moans. They each peered through a window above the hole and saw two men hanging by their seat belts. They soon came to the realization that the hole was too small to gain entrance, and Virginia's big belly didn't help the situation. Since the window was just hanging above the hole, they decided to grab a piece of the wreckage and tried to bust the window free from the window mounts that partially surrounded the hanging window. Each of them grabbed hold of a piece of metal that looked like it used to be the side of a door. Virginia got on her knees and shouted instructions to the two men inside, telling them to close their eyes while they were banging away at the glass. It took about eight bangs for the glass to be dislodged. This left a hole that was now about two to three feet high and about a foot and a half wide.
Before crawling in, Larry reached in his pocket and pulled out a small Leatherman knife that had several small blades, one of which turned out to be a small pair of scissors. While crawling in, he said, "Looks like these little scissors will come in handy again. They missed the little knife at the check-in place," he said with a big smile on his face. He crawled in, only to find a body of a woman he had to crawl over to get to the first man. He felt her neck at the carotid artery to see if she had a pulse and felt nothing, and he almost vomited from the sight of the dead woman. He now had to turn on his back to reach up to the first hanging man. "I am going to try to release the buckle," he shouted to the man. "You will only fall about a foot. Hold your breath." With that, he reached up and over his head and extended his hands upward toward the belt buckle and tried to pry the belt lock loose. He tried several times without success and decided to use the scissors, which now were lying on the dead woman's body. He slid his left hand between the belt and the side of the person, and, with his right hand, he began to try to cut the belt. He had little success, since the belt was too tough and too thick for the little scissors. He withdrew his hands and opened another section of the little knife, which contained a small, sharp blade about two inches long. "Hopefully, this sharp little knife will do the job," he mumbled to himself. With that, he extended his arms again and began to cut across the belt, and, slowly, it gave way to his sawing action. It was amazing that he had cut the belt until there were only a couple of threads holding it, and it still held the weight of the gentleman. "I guess they knew what they were doing when they chose the material for these safety belts," he again mumbled to himself. "One more cut, and it will come," he shouted to the man. With another scrape of the knife, down the fella crumbled, breaking his fall with his arms. He lay there exhausted. "Are you able to crawl?" Larry asked. The man nodded his head and then noticed the woman lying face down.
