On July 14, 2007 a small plane crashed in Gardner, Massachusetts. I was the pilot, flying with my husband (Axel) in the backseat and my co-worker (Joan) in the front seat. We were cut out of the plane wreck by a remarkable rescue crew from Gardner (Mass.) and surrounding towns and airlifted to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Axel was critically injured and stayed a week in intensive care. Joan and I were seriously injured and stayed about a week on the hospital’s trauma ward. We all received great trauma care for our various broken bones, ribs, vertebrae, lacerations, head injuries and bruises. After being released from the hospital Axel and Joan spent three weeks in rehab, while I was sent home on July 21st. By August 16 everyone had returned home and started the long road to recovery.
Two years later there are still visits to the physical therapist, reconstructive surgery of my right shoulder, lingering after effects that only surfaced when the big stuff was fixed. Still, if you saw us, you would be suprised to hear that we survived a plane crash; we are all fully participating in the world. For this we are very grateful.
This blog is a continuation of my daily reflections on the process of recovery and our lives as patients and people needing care. I started to write one week after the plane crash when I came home from the hospital on July 21, 2007. I have written something every single day since then. On Christmas Eve 2007 I received this website as a gift from my children Sita and Tessa. All the journal entries made on Caringbridge between July 15 and December 24, 2007 have been entered on this new site.
This daily ritual of writing has been good for me. I decided to continue to write, no longer as a patient in recovery, but as a professional working in public health, travelling to places around the world and trying to move people from inertia and despair to initiative and hope that things can change. I do this primarily through leadership development of health professionals. Now in my second life I have a full reservoir of energy that is constantly replenished by the people I work with.
I am also flying again. Recertified in January 2008, I have been flying, mostly with my flying buddy Bill, all over New England and even up the Hudson Corridor. Between the two of us we have flown some hundred hours if not more. I have added about 80 hours to my logbook since the accident. I am a much better pilot now.
A new chapter has opened. We have relocated to Kabul in the fall of 2009 . With that I have moved another step away from the initial intent of this blog: instead of writing about our own recovery and rehabiliation I will write about discovery and facilitation in a faraway land.
Dear Sylvia, Axel, Sita and Tessa,
By pure chance I may be the first to leave a comment on the new site. You are an exceptional family that has had the experience of becoming even more tight-knit and warm than you were before. All this from a crash that drew out each of your pre-existing strengths, but which you (and we) knew of only in a small part.
I would like to remark on one strength in particular: Sylvia, your awareness, expressiveness, persistence in writing, and perhaps most of all, your openness in describing your family’s experiences and relationships, and putting your own consciousness into words — all these have been intriguing and inspiring. We know you so much better than before! I thank you for this. A couple of times, you’ve questioned whether to continue posting. I’d like to tell you that not only Amy and I, but also others have read your writing — people like our brother-in-law Carlie Novogrodsky, Alan and Jean Teichroew, Barb Heyn and others. You have been telling a most compelling story.
Amy and I hope all of you have the most happy of new years.
Larry
Hi Sylvia,
I was surfing today and came acoss your blog. I am truly astonished to find your story. You and yours have had a pretty amazing year, from the crash to recovering. I wonder how you are all now,emotionally, as it has almost been the year.
It’s funny, in the end my end career ended up the same as yours, in Leadership Development,albeit for a large organisation, Shell. I did loads of things in between though, as well, because of Jim’s( my better half) job. I would really like to get in touch to exchange experiences ( I noticed you’d been to a Schein seminar, do you know of David Kantor?).
Let me know if that is of interst to you?
Joanne ( of Bosch en Hoven School and Stedelijk gymnasium)
Hi Svlvia,
It is only by accident (what a word in this case), that I came across your blog. You probably don’t remember me, as a lot of us at the SG Haarlem were most of the time more impressed by the higher classes and their privileges. I was, anyway.
I was hoping to find some old schoolmates through LinkedIn, but there are relatively few from our generation there. I found Joanne, who persuaded me to get rowing, about a week ago also through LinkedIn.
You wrote a remarkable story, I must say. Changes your perspective of Life, doesn’t it? A pity that the term “second life” nowadays has such a commonplace, even banal meaning.
I wish I had the endurance to write such stories on a continuous basis. Well, maybe my time for writing has come. Even a small note or “accidental” encounter in whatever form can give inspiration to change your habits.
I wish you good luck and hope we’ll meet again sometime at some SG reunion.
Olivier
Dear Sylvia,
Very special to see your picture and read your story. I got here indirectly through Olivier who is updating the aeternum-list.
I remember ao that you were my rowingcoach (is that correct english?)
these days I only have a rowing machine (a good one a Concept II indoor rower, they do world championchips on it), but it’s a long time ago that I could find time to exercise.
Like Willem I am a general practitioner, and after 4 years in a mission hospital in Ghana (83-87), I share a practice with pharmacy with my (in the meantime former) husband. Because of the divorce I am really parttime doctor and parttime parent; on my parenting days I feel lke I’m only the driver of my youngest daughter who is attending secondary school in Heerenveen (25km distance, 18 by bike),and dance classes in Oosterwolde (15km in the opposite direction)) and I recognize something of that in your last blog entry.
I hope that you have overcome all the negative consequences of your plane crash and that the positive effects will last.
Hartelijke groet,
Ling (Stedelijk Gymnasium)