Category Archives: Reno Air Races

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The Mission – Conclusion

Yes. I found the nurse.  Here’s the rest of the story. If you need to catch up, you can read Part 1 and Part 2

So. Gabrielle called me back the next day.  Can you give me an idea of what the nurse looked like? My contact at St. Mary’s thinks she knows who it might be, but we want to be sure.

I called Sweetie and asked if he could give me a description of the nurse.  She was tall and slender, he said. With long dark hair. 

Well, that just goes to show you what trauma can do to an eyewitness, as you will shortly see.  Nonetheless, knowing pretty much who Sweetie worked on after the crash (location, the number of people and the extent of their injuries), the nursing director at St. Mary’s was able to put two and two together and give us a name.

Julie.

Okay. Now we’d found her. She had been told that Sweetie wanted to meet with her and she was open to it. I was told she was very grateful for the help Sweetie had provided.  And so emails and phone calls continued apace.  I figured somehow I’d arrange it so Sweetie could go over to St. Mary’s and they’d have a reunion in a small office somewhere.

And still we were reeling.  Nothing much was making sense. I don’t know about Sweetie, but I think it took me at least three weeks until a day passed that I did not cry.

In the meantime, I was also the database and registration chair for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure which required that I spend much of the week before the race at Boomtown tending to In Person Registration. On top of that I was enrolled in an introductory photography class two nights a week at UNR.

Word came from TIP that Julie was going to be honored at the first ever Heroes with Heart dinner put on by the Trauma Intervention Program of Northern Nevada, and would we like to be their guests? He could meet with Julie there.  Yes, that would be great,  I replied. Sweetie was excited about the prospect and so we put the date on the calendar: October 6th.

While I was at Boomtown I received an email from Leslie at TIP.

Are you sure you are coming to the dinner? If so, would your husband like to present Julie her award?

I choked up. And there, in the middle of Boomtown’s convention center, the tears began to flow. I was so touched at how hard they were working to help Sweetie and Julie meet, and how much they wanted to make it a meaningful reunion.  They were honoring my husband’s healing process and it meant so much to me.  I wrote back that I would ask him and let them know.  I knew this wasn’t a question I could ask him over the phone, so I waited until I got home that night to tell him of TIP’s offer.

When I told him, he got a funny look on his face. And then he said, I don’t know. This isn’t going to be about me, is it? I don’t want it to be about me at all.

I assured him that nothing would be done that would make him uncomfortable.

I’ll have to think about it, he said.

He came to me the next morning before he left for work. Tell them I’d be honored to present Julie her award. But I don’t want ANYTHING said about what I did. 

Okay, sweetheart, I’ll tell them, I replied.

A few more emails and some phone calls, and yes, I was assured, nothing would be said about Sweetie’s role that day.

And so, the day came. We were told to meet up with Leslie regarding the presentation.

Sweetie warned me once again, This better not be a set-up. If it is, I’ll bolt.

I assured him, again, that everything was as I told him. I wouldn’t do that to him. No one wanted to do that to him.  If there is one thing trauma specialists understand is how victims process their trauma and how important it is to honor their comfort zones.

We got settled in at our table where a Washoe County deputy and his family were already seated. Somewhere in the course of the evening, before dinner was served, Sweetie finally got to meet The Nurse. And as for being a tall, dark-haired woman? No. She was a slip of a thing, with blonde hair.  But you see, in that moment, when lives were on the line, she took command. All of her training held her in good stead, and she did was she knew how to do. From what we found out later, this tiny woman is a force.  Finally, the small woman with the commanding voice and my dear, rush-in-where-angels-fear-to-tread, heart-bigger-than-his-brain husband met.

And they talked. Sweetie with a scotch in his hand, Julie with a Corona. Julie’s husband stood beside her; I stood with Sweetie.

They talked about the crash and the aftermath, and Sweetie talked about how intense it all was, and how Julie was his focus and how impressed he was with her. And Julie? She could only keep thanking Sweetie for being there.  She’s trained, she said. What blew her away were the people like my husband who just jumped in. Lives were saved because of people like him. Sweetie would have none of it. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. 

But it was you, she said.  And many others just like you. We couldn’t have done it alone.

Many times since that day I’ve said to Sweetie, I know you don’t think you’re better than anyone else, and I’m not saying that you are, but you were there, and you helped save lives. It’s yours. It was you. It’s okay to own that. It’s okay to be proud of that.

I think Sweetie thought that emergency first responders have some kind of special gene that allows them to turn off their feelings, so when Sweetie asked her how she dealt with all of it I think he was surprised when Julie held up her beer and said, This.  And Xanax.  Hey, we’re human too. When we are doing the job, that’s one thing. But we have to go home too. We have to process this stuff too.

They finished their conversation and said they’d see each other up on the stage for the presentation.

We sat down to dinner at our table, and Julie went back to hers.   We chatted up our table-mates and found out our deputy sheriff was also being honored that evening as a Hero with Heart.

And then it was time for the presentations.  There were a number of people being honored. Many of them were first responders who often don’t get recognized for the work they do every day and the many times they go the extra mile.  Presenters walked up one side of the stage and honorees the other. They met in the center and each honoree was presented their award along with a handshake and a smile for the camera.

Finally, it was time for Sweetie to give Julie her award. The announcer read a blurb about how Julie’s fast action saved lives at the air races and when they introduced Sweetie they merely noted how impressed he had been by her actions.  And he almost got away with it, except for this:

Later Sweetie said he didn’t know where that had come from, but this long, hard, emotional hug Just Happened.

Sweetie was immediately embarrassed. But happy too.

When I got back to the table, wiping away the tears that had been streaming down my face, our table-mates just stared at me.  Finally,  one of them asked, What exactly was your husband’s role in all of this?

So I told them. Briefly. And then swore them to secrecy. They were NOT allowed to say anything to Sweetie.

After the dinner I tried to get a better photo of Sweetie and Julie, but that was back when my photographic skills were far from what they are today.

But we think we’ll see Julie again this weekend. Hopefully, I’ll get a better shot then.

Yeah. We’re going back. It’s that old horse and getting back on thing. And facing down the fear. And getting on with life.

That night, as we were getting ready for bed, Sweetie said, Thank you, Baby. That really helped. It really did.

I’m so glad. I really hoped it would.

It did. It really did. I really needed that. Thank you. I love you.

I love you too, Babe.

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Return

Last Friday night Sweetie gazed at me across the table at Il Pescatore in Jack London Square. He took a sip of his scotch (neat). I held my glass of chardonnay.

“So how are you feeling about it?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I mean, I want to go. I want to see them again. But it’s probably going to get all god-ey, so there’s that. But I’ll just have to deal, ‘cause I just want to see them again, and I want to get on with this.”

“It” is the annual Reno Air Races Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. We weren’t even sure if they were going to have one this year. Notice was so short that we were informed, not by a formal letter as is the usual practice, but via a phone call that morning from Anita, the volunteer in charge of all the Box Seat Security volunteers.

“How about you?” I asked.

“Well, ever since you told me Anita had called about whether or not we wanted to volunteer again, I’ve been having really weird dreams. Not really air race stuff, but really bizarre dreams,” he said. Sweetie was speaking of another call Anita had made a couple of weeks ago to see how we felt about volunteering this year.

We don’t talk about it so much these days. Every once in a while we check in with each other. Mostly though, I think he and I have both just shoved it down. It works most of the time. Except when it doesn’t.

Today I’m wearing the shirt I wore that day. He has never taken off the rubber bracelet he got from one of the box owners.

Tonight we will be seated in a hangar with those volunteers who want the races to continue and who wish to be a part of them again.

Tonight we return to Stead.

I already have a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat.

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Last night

Maybe this wouldn’t have been so bad if the plane had been blue. Or red.

I was on my way to my lighting class and waiting to make the turn from McCarran onto Airway.   I looked up and left through my windshield in time to see a small  silver plane leaving Reno-Tahoe airport.  I watched it as it got closer. I can’t help it. I just do that now.  Most of the time I’m okay, as long as I can watch the plane ascend. But this one, maybe because of where I was sitting and the angle of this plane, didn’t feel like it was rising as it should.  My heart started to race and my breath came faster. I could not take my eyes off the plane and all I wanted to do was floor it and get the hell out of there.  But I couldn’t. Not until the light changed. After what seemed like forever the light flipped to green and I shot out of there like a bat out of hell.

Shit.

And yes, I know. I owe you a conclusion to “The Mission.”  That mission did come to a conclusion, but the story goes on.  For both of us.

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We made sandwiches

Twenty years ago I was the general manager at Carrows in Foster City. Twenty years ago, from October 19 – 23,  the Oakland Hills were ablaze. Standing by helplessly has never been my strong suit, so we did what we could.  The firefighters needed food, and people from all over were helping out.

We made sandwiches. Roast Beef. Turkey. Dry. We’d heard stories of firefighters stuffing sandwiches in their jackets to eat later and getting sick from the mayonnaise.  We wrapped cornbread into individual portions. And then we tucked it all in the back of my ’89 Dodge Colt.

It was dark by the time I left the restaurant and as I drove across the San Mateo bridge to head north to Oakland, I saw the hills on fire. The eeriest thing I’ve ever seen.

The effects of that fire are still being felt today and that is something for Sweetie and I to keep in mind as we navigate the aftermath of the air races crash.

As victims began to deal with the trauma of the fire, their dreams also began to change. People dreamed of confronting overwhelming physical obstacles — tidal waves or floods, metaphors for the fire — directly and often successfully. After months of therapy, one heavily traumatized survivor dreamed of fending off environmental terrorists who had invaded his neighborhood.

“As you work out the trauma, there are trial-and-error stages,” Siegel said. “Nine months after the fire, this guy saved his neighborhood from environmental terrorists in a dream. There you can see the evolution of resolution.”

Siegel also found that people who had escaped the fire without significant damage to their homes or their loved ones were wracked with the worst cases of post-traumatic stress. They were bedeviled by survivor’s guilt because the community perceived them — mistakenly, it turned out — to be immune from trauma and fear.

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The Mission, Part 2

A few days ago I wrote:

. . . there is no cosmic lesson we are required to learn.

To that I’d like to add, What a relief!

It is enough to just deal with the here-and-now. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that we don’t have the added obligation of trying to glean “meaning” from tragedy.

This is not to say that we haven’t been profoundly affected by the crash and all that followed. Nor is it that I haven’t taken time to examine my life and my priorities, or have failed to appreciate those who have held us in their love and concern.  But what a relief it is not to be tormented by feeling we must search for the eternal why.  The what-ifs are enough.

The Nurse was Sweetie’s touchstone. It was her voice that kept him moving through the awfulness. 

So you can understand why Sweetie wanted to know who she was. To find her. To talk to her again. We knew she was from St. Mary’s. That was all we knew. And Sweetie’s recollection of what people looked like was distorted by what he saw that day. Oil, blood, body parts, more blood. He thought she was a tall  muscular woman with dirty blonde hair.

I made it my mission to find The Nurse.

Saturday, September 17th was a numb day. We did not leave the house. We read everything we could about the crash.  We pored over photographs. We watched You Tube videos over and over again.  And Sweetie kept talking about The Nurse.  And we cried.

On Sunday we knew we needed a change of scenery, so our daughter joined us and the dogs on a hike up at Spooner Lake. It helped for a bit.  And we cried some more.

Our friend, Cindy, worked behind the scenes to find counseling help for us. We also learned of a Family Resource Center at the Hyatt Place Hotel where we’d heard there would be mental health counselors to help. We’d heard the Red Cross was available too.

We both went to work on Monday. We thought the distraction would help.  Eh, not so much.   I sent an email to Gabrielle at Trauma Intervention Program asking for pointers on where to go… not for me so much, but for Sweetie. She replied that she would call me later and in the meantime attached some information on dealing with trauma. It was helpful.  Around noon or so, Sweetie called to me he’d gone down to the Hyatt Place and spent an hour talking with some mental health counselors. It helped some, he said. You should go down there too, he said.  They are going to set us up with counseling at the Red Cross, but you should go down there today, he said.

I left work at about 2:45 and arrived at 3pm only to find that they’d closed up shop and left. The front desk clerk told I could call 211 and talk to someone. I started bawling as I walked back to the car.  I got in the car and immediately called 211. The auto-answer said I was 11th in line to talk to someone. And a few minutes later the same auto-voice came on the line again to tell me that I was still 11th in line. And a few minutes later the voice told me the same thing.  And then again. I called Sweetie.  They’re gone! I just wanted to talk to someone and they’re gone! And then I called the number, but they keep telling me I’m 11th in line and I just want to talk to somebody who’s not you… 

Sweetie told me to call Chris at the Red Cross but when I called I got the answering machine, so I left a semi-incoherent voice mail and hung up. Then I tried calling Gabrielle at the Trauma Intervention Program and, once again, instead of a live person I got voice mail. So, I left a tearful message there as well.

Turns out, while I was trying to call Chris at the Red Cross, Sweetie had called her at the same time demanding that she get hold of me right away because I was losing it in a parking lot at the Hyatt Place. While she was on the phone with him I called and she had to gently tell him he needed to hang up because I’m pretty sure your wife is trying to call me right now.

Chris called me back and talked me down. She asked me if I wanted to come over to the Red Cross right then and talk to her. Yes, please. I headed over there and met with Chris.  Chris was an old-time Red Cross volunteer who’d done time at the World Trade Center in the aftermath of 9/11, so she was a veteran. We had a very frank talk.  At one point my cell phone rang, but I ignored it. The caller left a voice mail.

Sweetie showed up while I was talking with Chris, and he waited for me until Chris and I were through, and then he and I walked out to the parking lot, kissed each other and said, I’ll see you at home.

But first, I had a voice mail to listen to. It was Gabrielle, and I called her back. She listened and talked to me for a half hour. Somewhere during our talk I told her about my mission. She had a contact at St. Mary’s. She said she would see what she could do to help.

To be continued . . .

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The Mission, Part 1

As you can all see, it’s been awhile. Nothing is flowing from these fingers, and it’s not because I haven’t been thinking about writing. It’s just that what I’m thinking about has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with what’s passing for news out there. I glance at the headlines and hear whispers that Rick Perry’s popularity may have crested, and that he needs to “revive” his campaign. Revive it? It barely has gotten started. I heard something about his ranch and a racist slur and I think, Why is everyone so surprised?  Chris Christie in? Nope. Sarah Palin? Nah. 

In other news, the Republicans are threatening to hold their breath and throw a tantrum in the grocery store if the Ds don’t give them more tax cuts. Same song, different day.

In the meantime, the recession has officially been over for two years (for who?), but only the 1% are seeing it. The economy isn’t improving, yet companies are still expected to provide profit to their shareholders, so the real backbone of the company (that would be the employees) are asked to squeeze more blood out of the proverbial turnip with no guarantees that said bloodletting will even guarantee them a job next month.  Occupy Wall Street is gaining steam. Will that lead to fundamental change? I hope so.

But. All of the above is merely static.

In a year that has seen, to name just a few, the death of a friend, the murder of a co-worker, the passing of two of our beloved pets, the dissolution of our daughter’s marriage, and the Reno Air Races crash on September 16th, I can only focus on doing the things we need to do to get through to the other side as emotionally whole as possible.  And while the world may have paused in shock and grief for a few days after the accident, it has mostly moved on. That is as it should be. Life is for the living. But for us and many others the trauma lingers. It comes at odd times. When I see flashing police lights. I no longer think, Someone’s getting a ticket.  Now I think, every damned time, Someone is hurt.  Planes coming in for a landing too close to the ground startle me.  Planes making the full-throttle steep ascent out of Reno-Tahoe airport are so reminiscent of Galloping Ghost’s final split seconds, that they send my heart racing too.  Images of the day appear unbidden at the oddest times. I don’t know what sounds, sights or smells trigger Sweetie’s flashbacks, but I know he has them. Sleep, for him, is still an issue and so he is tired much of the time.  At this point, we can only focus on the here-and-now and not clutter our lives up with shit that is still going to be shit tomorrow. It has only been three-and-a-half weeks, but it feels so much longer.

After the accident we wanted to make some sense of it, but it was clear immediately that there was no sense to be made. That has been our answer to every fool who tries to tell us that there must be a reason.  No, there isn’t. It was an accident. A horrific, life-changing accident and there is no cosmic lesson we are required to learn. There is no why other than this:  In a matter of seconds a piece of the plane broke off, causing the plane to careen out of control, causing the pilot to black out, and ultimately, causing the plane to crash into a crowd of spectators. People died. People were maimed – physically and emotionally. If the plane had crashed on the other side of the field, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But it happened. And it happened where it did. And we’re just having to deal with it. 

Sweetie and The Nurse

In the immediate aftermath of the accident Sweetie started talking about The Nurse. The Nurse who grabbed him as he came running into the carnage. The Nurse who took a look at one victim and said, “He’s not breathing. Come with me.”  The Nurse who moved to another pile of humanity, still alive, but minutes from bleeding to death.  The Nurse told him to tourniquet the man with two missing legs. “Use your belt,” The Nurse told him.  He did. But he needed a second belt and yelled for it – or did The Nurse? A second belt appeared across his shoulder. He pulled that one tight as well and then held on for dear life.  And all the time The Nurse moved between the four lying there and yelled for Number 1′s!  The Nurse was Sweetie’s touchstone. It was her voice that kept him moving through the awfulness. 

So you can understand why Sweetie wanted to know who she was. To find her. To talk to her again. We knew she was from St. Mary’s. That was all we knew. And Sweetie’s recollection of what people looked like was distorted by what he saw that day. Oil, blood, body parts, more blood. He thought she was a tall  muscular woman with dirty blonde hair.

I made it my mission to find The Nurse.

To be continued . . .

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It’s been a week

We met with a trauma counselor* through the Red Cross on Thursday. He helped us to know we aren’t crazy and that everything we’re feeling right now is normal. The guilt, no hunger, crying, flashbacks.  He encouraged us to talk about it with each other and with people we trust and to be gentle on ourselves. To follow our normal daily routines. To allow ourselves time to heal. But we won’t ever be the same, he said. Don’t expect that. We’d already figured that out. But it will fade with time, he said.

We are trying to put all the puzzle pieces together, and that means we comb the news for pictures and videos. What Sweetie finds, he shares with me. What I find, I share with him.

There are triggers. We’ve been told not to avoid them but to work through them and tell ourselves that we’re okay. I know that’s what I’m supposed to do, and I’ll have to. There is no avoiding planes landing, sirens, or flashing police and ambulance lights.

There hasn’t been a day go by that we haven’t cried. Not yet. We are slowly starting to experience hunger again, but we only eat to fill the hole. It all pretty much tastes like paste. But on Thursday night I sliced up a ripe tomato from our garden and lightly salted it. I could taste it, and it tasted good.

It will get better.

* If you, or anyone you know, was at the air races, witnessed the accident and its aftermath and is struggling emotionally, please contact your local American Red Cross for free trauma counseling. They can help you. If your company has an Employee Assistance Program, they can help as well.  Whatever you do, don’t stuff it. Please.

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Sharon Stewart: A smile for us, year after year

In addition to our regular gang of box seat security volunteers who return year after year, Sharon Stewart returned each year too, in her black jeans,  smiling and laughing and showing the newbies the ropes. 

She had a quick smile and always a friendly word.   And she worked hard in the hot sun to make a few bucks to maybe put enough of them together to take a trip to see her sons.

“She couldn’t wait to work those five days for the air races,” said Jose Luis Cacheux-Ojeda, who goes by Joe. He and Sharon had been together for 35 years and have lived in the Reno area since 1994.

[ . . .]

Charlene Summers, of Sparks, said Stewart was her best friend.

“She always laughed. She liked to do things to have fun. She was very outgoing,” she said.

Summers said Stewart would usually lay out her clothes the day before the air races began and would get to work an hour early.

“She just loved it. She was where she wanted to be.”

Maura Cox, Stewart’s next-door neighbor, said she was all smiles when she finished work Thursday and she waived to her Friday morning before going to work.

I will miss her very much.