Another Anniversary

It's been 18 years and my heart still hurts. Yesterday, December 7th, yes, Pearl Harbor Day marks another anniversary, one that's very personal for me. It's the anniversary of the day the helicopter crashed at my old TV station in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. I lost 3 very dear friends. 3 friends who I think about often and wonder what their lives would be like today if they had lived.
There were four guys-- all of them engaged to be married-- flying home from covering the State Football Championship playoff game. Chopper Jim was engaged to my roommate, Diane. They were one week away from their wedding. Then there was Bart, the photojournalist (cameraman) I loved to work with, Tony-- one of our sports guys and Rick-- the Satellite truck engineer who normally drove home but hitched a quick ride that night to get home earlier to his fiancee'. All of these men were exceptional human beings. That's the best way to describe them. You know the old saying that the Lord always takes the good ones-- that couldn't be more true.
Our helicopter had just been through routine maintenance the day before-- the helicopter I flew on several times a week and was scheduled to fly on later that morning. Just outside of Raleigh, the ball bearings in the rotors seized up. The chopper fell from the sky, the equivalent of falling from the top of a 150 story building.
The impact was so severe, the helicopter shattered into pieces. Chopper Jim did his best but in the end, he maneuvered the chopper so it landed the hardest on his side. Bart, the cameraman, was a big guy-- about 6 foot 7. On impact his seat in the back was torn from its bolts and hit Tony's seat in front so hard it pushed Tony through the windshield. Bart, Jim and Rick all died instantly, but somehow, Tony survived. I can't remember how many feet from the helicopter he was propelled-- but when he came to, his clothes were down around his ankles. He had bloody cuts all around his face from going through the window and several broken bones. It was cold and the leaves were off the trees in the forest-like area where they crashed. He could see a light through the trees and starting dragging himself toward it. He finally made it and when he knocked frantically on the door-- the poor woman inside wouldn't answer. (Who blames her-- a half naked man, covered in blood banging on her door in the wee hours of the morning?)... she called the police.
My phone rang at 3:30 a.m. I'll never forget and I still have to re-start my heart whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night. I remember getting the news and immediately praying for strength and a way to somehow find the courage to go in and wake up my roommate and dear friend, Diane (Chopper Jim's fiancee'). We'd stayed up awfully late that night putting the finishing touches on our fancy dresses for WTVD-TV's black tie Christmas Party the next night. We later figured we'd gone to bed just about the time the helicopter crashed. So here it was a few hours later and I was waking up Diane.
I clearly remember those moments as if it was yesterday. Diane went through several of the steps you'd expect-- denial, anger, physical pain, emotional trauma and finally numbness. It was a horrific experience. Jim was the love of her life and she was his. We spent the next few days cancelling a wedding and planning a funeral.
I talked with her on this, the 18 year anniversary, and we both feel like that experience changed who we are, how we act and how we think. I'm not sure I can ever put it into words but it seems like it was the precise moment I graduated from feeling young, invincible and carefree to feeling like a true adult-- an adult with cuts and bruises on the soul that never quite heal. I've had other trauma and trials since then-- but December 7, 1991 is the day I was forced to grow up.