That ambulance is for Raj
Flood regained consciousness still strapped in his seat. But the seat was lying on its side in the rear of the aircraft.
When Flood regained consciousness he was in the aft portion of the airplane.
Samasundaram was slumped in the left seat, not moving.
Flood had been unconscious less than two minutes. But during that time, fire had torn through the aircraft and charred both occupants.
Flood didn’t know it yet, but second-and third-degree burns covered most of his body, and he’d eventually lose all, or part, of every finger on his right hand.
With great effort, Flood wriggled forward, still hooked to his seat.
The right door and most of the right side of the aircraft were gone, and the airplane was upright, with fire smoldering on the wings. The Baron had carried enough avgas to return to Lincoln without refueling, at least 60 gallons.
He tried to wake Samasundaram, but the pilot wasn’t breathing, and Flood couldn’t move him.
Flood untangled himself from the seatbelt harness and began stumbling across the cornfield, toward the airport where he hoped to find a phone to summon rescuers. He could see the airport beacon and runway lights about a half-mile away, but his progress was slow in the rain and darkness. His contact lenses had melted on his eyes, blurring his vision.
“I thought no one had seen us crash,” he said. “Then I saw two sets of headlights coming toward me.”
“I thought no one had seen us crash,” he said. “Then I saw two sets of headlights coming toward me.”
It was Brian Williams, the farmer whose home the plane had narrowly missed, driving a pickup, and Kendra Hallenbeck, who had been driving her own pickup to work when she saw the airplane fall.
“Is there anyone still in the airplane?” Williams asked Flood.
He told him about Samasundaram.
Then, with Williams and Hallenbeck assisting, Flood climbed into the passenger seat of her pickup and they began driving to a hospital. They moved slowly, about 10 miles an hour, because freezing rain made the roads dangerously slick. An ambulance went by in the opposite direction. Should they flag it down?
No, Flood said. “That ambulance is for Raj.”
Unknown to Flood, Samasundaram had already died. Williams and the emergency workers about to arrive at the accident site couldn’t save him.
As Flood rode to the hospital, he began to feel pain. Adrenaline was wearing off and the sun was rising. Flood could see his jeans were burned away, his sweater was melted, and his exposed skin was black and wrinkled. He was covered with mud and dirt, and since Nebraska farmers typically let cattle graze in harvested fields, Flood realized his burns were sure to become infected.
Flood shivered, a common physical symptom among burn victims unable to regulate body temperature. And he felt the onset of an unquenchable thirst.
“Hold my hand,” he told Hallenbeck. “I’m scared.”
‘I threw in the towel’
Flood’s parents, David and Lennette, had always supported his quest to fly, and they had encouraged him to live at home during college so that he could spend his earnings on flying.
When David, a truck driver, and Lenette, a homemaker, met their son at the hospital in Lincoln on February 7, 2001, they learned that in the cold calculus of burn victims a simple formula sets a patient’s odds for survival: Add their age to the percentage of skin burned and subtract that number from 100. In Flood’s case, 22 years old plus 65 percent burns gave him a 13 percent chance of living. And Flood’s doctors weren’t that optimistic because smoke had badly damaged his lungs.
Flood and one of his rescuers, Brian Williams.
The doctors kept Flood in a state of suspended animation for three weeks. During that time, Williams visited the hospital and wrote brightly in the guest registry that he hoped they could go flying together once Flood recovered. But when the farmer actually saw the young man, he almost regretted helping save his life.
“He was just struggling for every breath,” Williams said. “I wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off not having to suffer like that.”
When Flood opened his eyes, his hospital room was decorated with airplane pictures and family photos. His parents knew he was going to be there for months, and they wanted to make it feel as much like home as possible.
When Flood saw his own reflection, however, he began to realize how much his life had changed—and how long his road to recovery would be. Flood took stock of his future and realized flying for the airlines was out of the question.
“I pretty much threw in the towel,” he said.
