Working "Recovery" From a Plane Crash

allen griggs

I feel sorry for the French firemen and policemen working recovery from the German plane crash.

WARNING: Graphic first person description of recovery of human remains from a plane crash.

When I was a paramedic in central Georgia, we worked a plane crash one night. It was about 10 pm, we got a call on 911 to respond to a plane crash. This was really weird, we didn't get many plane crashes in my little county. The location was 15 miles from our little airport.

My partner and I drove out there in 5M9, lights and sirens. A Georgia State Trooper had arrived before us and showed us the way to the crash.
The plane was a pile of aluminum junk. We looked into the airplane and saw immediately that everyone was dead. In fact, what we saw was four sets of legs.

It turned out, a twin engine Beechcraft was flying along in a thunderstorm, and had flown right into the ground. The pilot would have been flying instruments only, either the instruments failed him, or he screwed up, but he flew it right into the ground, as we later learned at about 220 mph. In this way, our plane crash was like the German plane crash, except, the German plane was going faster.

I had worked plenty of fatal car crashes, at 60 mph or at, if the guy was drunk enough, at 95 mph, but 220 mph was a whole new ball game.

Upon impact, the torsos were * free from the legs, and all four torsos went through the windshield, and flew out into the forest at high speed.
We were in Baldwin County Georgia. We did not have a professional airplane crash response team. We did the best we could.
Working with the State Patrol, and the deputies, and the coroner, we got four body bags. We could tell from the legs, and shoes left in the plane, that there had been a man flying the plane, and there were two women passengers, and a little boy.

We got 4 body bags. We got a piece of paper and taped it to the bag, and labeled it "MAN."
Labeled the second one "WOMAN #1." Then, labeled "WOMAN #2" a the last one "BOY."
I walked through the woods, and about 100 feet from the plane was a barbed wire fence at the edge of a field. Right at the bottom of the fence with my big flashlight I spotted part of a hand. There was the little finger, the ring finger, and the middle finger. I could tell it was the left hand.Evidently, the torso had been flying through the air at high speed, and when the arm hit the fence, it severed the hand. Pretty clean cut. I saw that there was red fingernail polish on the fingernails.
So, I took this piece of hand back to body bag labeled "WOMAN #1." I looked in there, in the dark and the rain with my flashlight, and among the legs and other pieces, I saw a left hand. Nope, wasn't her, she already had a left hand.
So, I took the hand over and put it in the body bag labeled "WOMAN #2."

I gotta tell you, after about a half hour of this I was beyond sick to my stomach, I was ready to drive to the Oconee River and jump off of that high bridge.
At that point, there were 4 Paramedics, 4 State Troopers, 3 deputies, and about 40 volunteer firemen working the crash, picking up body parts.
I told my Captain, "Look, these volunteer firemen can pick up body parts as well as I can. I need to return to the barracks, get a shower, and stand by in case a living person needs a paramedic, and calls 911."
The Captain agreed and my partner and I got in the ambulance and went back to the barracks. I did take a shower but I was kind of in a state of shock. I had never seen anything so tragic, so horrible.
Rest assured, when I went home the next morning at 8 am I got me a six pack, and a fifth of Jack Daniels, and I worked on that booze the entire day. I was horrified and I felt like I was in a kind of state of shock.

I feel sorry for the French firefighters and police who are working recovery from the German plane crash. They have forty times as many people, and the plane was going twice as fast.
These tough mountain rescuers of France will bear the scars of this plane crash for many years.

Laredo Lefty

Plane crashes are not a pleasant experience. I have worked a few, the largest around 1974. It was a mid air collision between a small private plane with 2 on board and a commuter plane with about 12 to 15 on board.

People and parts of people were scattered over a large area. I was the first cop on scene and approached the main cabin of the commuter. I could see a man sitting in his seat and he looked intact, and I thought he might be alive. I stuck my baton into the wreckage to try to pry it away from him and realized nothing was going to move due to it being so compacted into the ground. I pulled out my baton and it was covered with tissue and blood.

Ditch-Runner

I feel for any one who has the grim task .
I worked with a mortician , who had taken a job at the factory I worked at ( it was the family business in the funeral services ) just too many to support all, but he kept his license and training up.
I have always been a question asking fellow so many times I would ask about how or why not being morbid just the basic of how they treat a body.. any way he was telling me kids are the worst as they have just started there life , the worst he ever had to do was a train hit a station wagon with a family in it , this was many years ago , he told me picking up parts and pieces of the kids still haunted him , had to be the worst day ever in the business,
Sadly cancer took him buy Jim was a great fellow and I did learn a lot from him .

shilowar

Experiences such as these can be haunting. I have had a few that caused nightmares for a several nights after, and the images are still with me today like I just saw them. Part of what they call PTSD these days, back then you just sucked it up as best you could and got the job done. Been to a few car wrecks that weren't much different than a plane crash as far as the condition of human remains. I can only imagine what it was like at the Twin Towers and other large plane crash scenes.

Txs

BTDT

Sperry

When . . .what was it, Air Tran? went down in Florida, I read there was not a single piece bigger than a telephone book.

That was a cabin fire, i think, right after take-off. O2 bottles?

Mobuck

When I was maybe 12-13 years old a 707 broke apart and hit the ground about 15 miles north of home. It was like a carnival as about half the county population was there picking up stuff and clearing debris from the farm fields. Every once in a while someone would find a body part or something squishy but no biggy. Prepared me for some of what I saw a few years later half way around the world.

pulsarnc

in 32 years as a volunteer fireman I have not had to deal with a plane crash but Lord knows how many wrecks .Several of them have included picking up body parts strewn across the road .Some of them stick in my mind 20 years later.

chiefr

Yep, another job that someone has to do. Most people can't cope or have flashbacks that stick with them the rest of their lives. Think of what our vets have endured.

Also it looks like the plane was forced down.

Rocky Raab

Back in the 60s, I was in the Civil Air Patrol. We found a lost Cessna 172 that had crashed three days prior. Two smashed bodies after three days in 90? temps is an experience I'll not forget.

ChrisInTempe

Didn't read the descriptions above. Worked quite a few recoveries back in my Rescue Dude Dayze. Worst were the children. That stuff never truly leaves you, just moves back a little bit.

Have only respect and sympathy for the people going out to those mountains. The duty they perform is a kindness to the families, but a true burden to themselves.

Alpine

You will never be able to forget those scenes. They are with you for life.

11b6r

BTDT. Vicks Vap-o-rub on your upper lip helps. So does Jack Daniels afterwards.

ChrisStreett

One aircraft crash, hopefully never another. Our team guys were working for the 0700-1500 patrol officers while they attended a funeral for another officer killed L.O.D. from their district. Right at shift change, as we were being relieved by the 1500-2300 officers, a call came over the radio "10-50 Red" meaning one of our helicopters was going in hard. Foxtrot was part of SOD, we worked closely and often flew with the pilots and observers on a daily basis, they were all friends. At the scene we found remains which looked like a giant ball of aluminum foil with some aircraft parts laying around, the arm of a flight suit and gloved hand visible sticking out of the wreckage. Catastrophic engine failure at 500' (or less) while following a stolen vehicle brought it down. The AC commander, Flight Officer Barry Wood, a VN Huey pilot with thousands of hours seat time, just prior to impact, swerved his AC sideways taking the full impact on his side of the helicopter saving his observer and best friend. Despite the Shock Trauma Center being only blocks away, over 100 units of blood and some of the finest trauma docs in the world, he did not survive. I've been at literally hundreds of homicide scenes, fellow officers being killed, fatal crashes and a host of other examples of man's inhumanity to man, yet prying a friend out of that wreckage is one of the few that haunts me to this day. You just can't comprehend what remains-or doesn't-after an event like this.
(Thanks for letting me ramble on about this-haven't talked about it in years but some of the the posts about other's experiences brought it back like it was yesterday.)

TangoSierra

Have been a licensed funeral director and embalmer for over 40 years, though most of it I have not been in the business. I have seen and done things that I still think about on occasion. Some still upset me sometimes. I have been lucky that I have been able to put most of it behind me and move on with out thinking of it.

Oakie

Never seen a plane wreck, but have seen my share of accidents from being and emt. The one incident that put an end to my emt career, was watching a two year old little girl, hanging upside down in a car by her seat belt, crying and screaming as she was burning to death. That day I walked away from being a volunteer emt and firefighter. I couldn't do it after 15 years and still have nightmares about that little girl. I still see her screaming for her mommy and see her parents being held back by police and firefighters. There was nothing we could do as the fire was to intense and the car kept exploding. Every guy there said they felt helpless, ashamed and embarrassed that we could help her.The one officer that tried to help her before we got there had third degree burns on his face and arms and had to go through intensive surgeries. Oakie

RobOz

One of my best friends worked the recovery for USAir Flight 427. He was a seasoned EMT/Fireman and it bothered him so much he had to see a doctor. He just could not get the images out of his head. I swear it aged him 10 years.

cpermd

Two airplane crashes and the Joplin tornado

Not doing any more of it

[:(]

GUNFUNCO

I had just transferred from the detroit area the week before Flight 255 crashed. That was the one with the single 4 year old survivor. I talked to some of the officers that worked the scene later and was glad that I missed it although I was originally disappointed that I didn't get to work it. They told me that you couldn't get the smell of death out of their uniforms. Most trashed or burned their uniforms after they were finished.

I did get a call several years later when a military jet went down in Huron County. The 2 Aviators had punched out and couldn't be located and were not responding. Dispatch requested me and my quadrunner to respond to the search area but by the time I loaded the quad in my patrol truck and headed north, I got called off because they had been located in some trees. Neither had survived.

I worked the rest of my career without having to work a plane crash.

I feel for those of you that have had to deal with that stuff. I have a few of my own bad dreams and negative issues from other types of incidents I did respond to. I can especially relate to a fiery car crash that a young man perished in.

There were several others but it's probably best I don't wake up those ghosts of the past.

shilowar

Plane crash scenes, especially military or commercial are very dangerous health wise too. If a military jet goes does down stay away. Burning carbon fiber kills. Its like asbestos, the fibers are little fish hooks, once you inhale them they never leave your lungs and you die a few years later from a mesothelioma type cancer.