Word: crashing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When a Southern Airways DC-9 crashed in rain and hail near New Hope, Ga., in 1977, Flight Attendant Sandy Purl was not among the 70 dead. But she came to wish she had been. Hospitalized and sedated for shock, Purl would leap from her bed each night shouting, "Grab your ankles!" and try to force other patients into the classic precrash body position. A year later, she was still overcome with guilt that she had survived and her passengers died. One recurrent fantasy was that her arms and legs were gone. Says Purl: "I thought maybe...
...example of postcrash syndrome among airline personnel: a deep trauma that combines survivor guilt, depression, rage and an array of physical symptoms ranging from digestive problems and hypertension to sleeplessness and heart ailments. Some survivors develop phobias or panic when they hear sounds that remind them of the crash, and many are so worn out by the continuing anguish that they say they are simply too tired to make even minor decisions about their lives. Says Psychiatric Sociologist Margaret Barbeau of Glendale, Calif.: "You can walk away from an accident without physical injury, but the emotional injury may be even...
...first reaction of the survivor, says Barbeau, is "psychic numbing," a defense mechanism that keeps him or her functioning. Then the full horror of the crash pokes through, fades again, and gradually comes to overwhelm the victim. Like many flight attendants, Arlene Feroe, who survived an Alaska Airlines accident, ran around the hospital for days apologizing to injured passengers. Another attendant drove his automobile into a tree during a hallucination; he "saw" a colleague who died in a plane crash sitting beside...
Justly or not, the first wave of rage is usually directed at the airline for not doing more to prevent crashes. Says Sandy Clay, a survivor of the United crash at Portland, Ore., last December: "I wanted to blow up the airline. I tried to run over an executive of the company after they forced me to take sick leave and workmen's compensation." Some would like to get back to work, but feel they are treated like pariahs. Others are terrified about flying again, and shocked that employers ignore the effects of trauma and want them right back...
Carter has thrown in his lot with the alternative annointed by the oil industry, pushing his $88 billion crash plan for synthetic fuels. Kennedy has opposed Carter's plan, saying that the country should not make the nuclear power mistake again--investing massively in an energy source before knowing its costs. Already, doubts about the environmental and economic soundness of synthetic fuels are cropping...