Flight to Heaven Page 3

  Although I remembered nothing of the fall, for example, for years after the crash I would be jolted awake from a sound sleep by my arms flailing in circles, trying to balance myself as I fell helplessly through the air. That is how things came back to me. A frightful image from a dream. A sudden flash of memory. A newspaper article piecing together the events. An eyewitness handing me some missing piece to the puzzle.

  Not only was the plane shattered, pieces of the wreckage lying everywhere, my mind was shattered, twisted pieces of memory scattered over the landscape of the year that stretched before me. Some of what follows was told to me by ambulance personnel, doctors, and friends who visited the crash sight.

  Gene and Chuck were thrown from the plane. Gene was not moving. Chuck was lying on the ground, moaning. Apparently I was still in what remained of the cockpit, lying like a rag doll, limp and motionless. The three of us hit the ground within five feet of each other.

  I’m not sure how long I lay there. I was later told that the Burbank Tower had summoned an ambulance that arrived eleven minutes after the crash. When paramedics arrived, they found me staggering through the rubble in a state of shock. I was drenched in fuel, both hands clutching my blood-streaked face with parts of the airplane sticking out of my head and legs. They ran to me and gingerly laid me on the ground.

  Chuck and I were put into the same ambulance that sped through the streets, siren blaring. When the ambulance arrived at nearby St. Joseph Hospital, a trauma team was scrubbed and ready for us.

  At this point, I didn’t know where I was or how I got there.

  That is what blunt-force trauma does. The brain goes into autopilot mode. It runs the way it was programmed to run without interference from the conscious mind. It takes control, marshaling the body’s resources to deal with the trauma the body is experiencing.

  As we burst through the doors of the ER, something inexplicable happened, sending me into uncharted territory.

  Suddenly I found myself suspended in midair, hovering over the wreckage of my body. My gray pants and short-sleeve shirt were torn to shreds and soaked in blood and fuel.

  I had a bird’s-eye view of the entire ER and watched the flurry of activity like a bystander. They wheeled the blue gurney I was on into a room about thirty-five-feet square.

  They undid the red straps that held me and moved me onto a metal table. I hovered above the end of the table, near my feet, and just below the acoustical tile ceiling.

  A thick-boned, gray-headed doctor approached my body, standing near my left shoulder, and began inspecting me. He gently turned my head to the left, focusing on the damage to my face. He went about his work professionally and unemotionally.

  What happened to me? I wondered. Where am I?

  Three nurses were in the room, the shortest of which stood to the doctor’s left. The other two were on the opposite side of the table, cutting off what remained of my clothes, working furiously.

  It was then I noticed that my hearing was impaired. I was only a few feet away, but I could barely hear any sounds, barely make out any words, though I could see everything clearly and distinctly.

  As the trauma team worked feverishly, I felt surprisingly detached. I recognized myself on the table, but felt no anxiety, no sense of urgency, no pain, no sadness, nothing.

  It was a schizophrenic feeling, being two places at once, your body on the table below, another very real part of you floating near the ceiling above. That may be my body, I thought, but I’m up here. I can’t be dead because I feel so alive. Amazingly, I wasn’t shocked by all this, just curious, still wondering what had happened.

  I looked around the room, surveying the surroundings. The floor was covered in white tiles. Within each were tiny bits of black running in one direction. My eyes followed the tiles from the floor, up the wall, where they stopped about shoulder high.

  I noticed the medical equipment, the trays with instruments spread out, the medical staff in gowns. It was all cold and sterile.

  All the while, I couldn’t stop wondering, This must be a hospital, but why am I here? What happened?

  Then I experienced the first emotions in my suspended state. A commotion was going on to my left in a room partitioned off by gray curtains. I strained to see what was happening, but I couldn’t see through the curtains and I wasn’t high enough to look over them. The sounds were garbled, and I couldn’t make out what was being said, though I sensed urgency.

  I was keenly aware of the atmosphere. Intense, filled with anxiety. Suddenly a wave of sadness washed over me. Medical personnel scurried in and out the room. The sense of loss and grief was heavy beyond belief. The worst feeling I’ve had in my entire life. The ache was so deep and so intense I couldn’t think about anything else.

  Then suddenly, without warning, a clear and powerful memory flashed into my mind. I was in the fifth grade. I was a tenderhearted kid who had just received Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. I remember how truly I believed the Bible’s teaching about Jesus being God’s only Son and that He loved me. I recall how genuinely sorry I was for my sins and how I prayed that night at church camp for Jesus to be my Savior and friend. I was so full of love for Him, full of zeal. Even at that young age I was filled with purpose and peace.

  On the heels of that flashback came a new realization. I was no longer that tenderhearted kid. I was selfish and arrogant. A person who loved a lot of things but not the things God loved. A person who had zeal for a lot of things but not for the things the Lord had zeal for.

  It was about me. It was all about me. My life. My career. My hopes. My dreams.

  My rush.

  I felt shame, sadness, grief.

  The feelings were palpable. They had weight. And I felt like the weight of those feelings was pulling me down.

  Then in a heartbeat the heaviness left. I felt light again. Like I was a hot-air balloon that had been untethered from its moorings and was drifting skyward.

  I began moving higher, slowly but steadily. I noticed details in the light fixtures as I approached them. I saw into the air-conditioning ducts in the ceiling. I was moving away from my body, slowly . . . out of the room . . . down the hallway.

  I began picking up speed. The movement was effortless, and I had no sensation of self-movement. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was distinctly aware that some irresistible force was drawing me there.

  The speed of my movement increased. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t steer it.

  I moved faster, faster, and faster still.

  Then suddenly . . .

  I was gone.

  3

  AT THE EDGE OF DEATH

  The phone rang at my parents’ home in Los Alamitos, interrupting my mother’s quiet morning routine.

  “Mrs. Black?” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “This is St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank. I’m sorry to tell you this, but . . . there’s been a plane crash. One man was killed. At this time there are two survivors. Both are in critical condition. One of them is your son.”

  My mother listened in stunned silence, said she would be right there, and hung up. She dialed my father’s office, and the secretary pulled him out of a meeting to tell him the news and that his wife was on the way to pick him up.

  Somehow Mom made the drive to Long Beach Shavings Company, where my dad was co-owner. Along the way her thoughts hounded her. This can’t be happening. I should have asked more questions. Why didn’t I ask more questions?

  It was as if she had stepped into a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from, and her thoughts were terrifying creatures that just kept coming and coming and coming. She couldn’t run from them, and she couldn’t hide.

  She fumbled with the knob on the car radio, hoping to find a newsbreak that might give her more information. Information she desperately wanted to hear and at the same time didn’t.

  He’s alive, she said to herself. Thank God, he’s still alive. She gripped the steering
wheel tighter, more determined, and stomped on the accelerator, not a minute to lose.

  Screeching into the company parking lot, Mom ran toward the door where Dad was pacing. She collapsed in his arms, releasing the tears she could no longer hold back.

  But this was no time for tears. They had to hurry. Dad rushed her to the car, took the wheel, and raced north on the Long Beach Freeway. They were weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring the blare of horns. Once again Mom turned on the radio, and once again came the news. Both strained to hear over the noise of the traffic.

  “A second fatality has been reported in this morning’s airplane crash just outside of Hollywood-Burbank Airport. Names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.”

  One was still alive! Which one? The rest of the way neither of them spoke, fearing the worst but praying for the best. The trip seemed like an eternity. Finally they slammed on the brakes in the hospital parking lot. They shot out of the car, raced toward the emergency room, and burst through the doors, their faces wringing with emotion.

  “My son. He was in a plane crash. Is he alive?” my dad asked breathlessly.

  Everything in the ER stopped, all eyes riveted on them. The nurse at the desk froze.

  “Well, is he alive or not?” my father demanded.

  “It depends on what your last name is,” she said.

  “Black. My son’s name is Dale Black.”

  “Yes, sir, your son is alive.” Mom almost collapsed. “But let me warn you,” the nurse said, “his injuries are massive. He’s suffered a tremendous trauma and is in critical condition.”

  “Can we see him?”

  The nurse shook her head. “He’s in surgery. You can go to the waiting room and check in. Someone will come out and let you know how he is doing.”

  Hours passed, painfully uncertain moments at a time. My parents made a few phone calls, and soon the waiting room was full of friends and family, all in a state of shock, some crying, most of them praying. Talking amongst themselves to bolster their courage. Preparing themselves each time someone in hospital scrubs came to update them on my condition.

  I was in the operating room for ten hours. Nurses sponged my body of blood and aviation fuel. They hooked me up to various monitors and IVs, put a tube down my throat, and went to work. A tag team of surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists labored to keep me alive.

  The free fall undoubtedly caused major trauma to my internal organs. There was concern that they had burst, shut down, or suffered severe lacerations. Another concern was for whatever fractures my skeletal structure had sustained. The primary area of focus, though, was the neurological system. Was there brain damage? Spinal cord injury?

  A husky-looking doctor came into the waiting room. “The Black family?” he called. Every conversation stopped. Mom and Dad made themselves known.

  “We’re his parents.”

  “Dr. Graham.”

  Dr. Homer Graham was one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the country. I was in the best care possible. But my parents didn’t know this at the time. All they knew was what they’d gotten from the radio on the way to the hospital and then what they heard from the nurse at the front desk.

  “He’s alive.”

  “Oh, thank God,” they said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “We’re still working on him. Should be a long day. Things are touch and go. But we’ve got a good team in place, and we’ll give him our best.”

  It was indeed a long day, both for the people in the operating room and for the ones in the waiting room. At the end of the day, Dr. Graham came out again, his gown drenched with sweat.

  “How is he?” my dad asked.

  “Both ankles and knees were broken. Both legs fractured. His back was broken in three places.”

  My mother gasped. “Is he—”

  “Paralyzed?” the doctor said. “Too early to tell.”

  The doctor paused, seeing these were painful words for my parents. Then he continued.

  “His left arm and shoulder were severely damaged. The ball-and-socket in his left shoulder exploded on impact. His right arm was fractured. His left ankle was crushed beyond repair.”

  My mother bit back the tears, wondering about the ramifications of “beyond repair.”

  “Debris from the aircraft penetrated both legs. His face was brutally lacerated with a gash through the middle of his forehead, eyebrow, and into his right eye,” the doctor said, indicating on his own face where the gash occurred. “The right side of his head was virtually shaved off. We’ll do the best plastic surgery we can . . .” He paused, searching for the right words. “Regardless, he won’t look the way he used to.”

  The avalanche of bad news buried my parents. All they could do was stand there, frozen and numb.

  At last my father spoke. “What’s the prognosis, long term?”

  “If he survives, he won’t regain use of his left arm and leg. All the doctors concur. Paralysis is a threat; we’ll be watching closely for that. He’ll be blind or nearly blind in his right eye. And—” he paused—“there’s a strong possibility of brain damage. He survived a strong blow to the head; it’s reasonable to assume he didn’t survive it without some permanent damage. The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours are critical.”

  The words if he survives resounded in my parents’ thoughts over the days ahead, echoing in the empty moments when they were alone. Walking the hallways of every waking hour. Haunting the stillness at night. Staring at them in the morning.

  If he survives . . .

  4

  NEW EYES FOR A NEW DIMENSION

  For three days I was in a coma. I was watched around the clock, nurses shuffling in and out at all times of the day and night to check my vitals, change my bandages, see if the stitches were holding, if the swelling was under control.

  My parents were at the hospital much of the time. My grandparents came, my brothers, my aunts and uncles. Friends from school. Co-workers at the company. They prayed, they cried, they worried, and they wondered. Would I survive? Would I be paralyzed? Would I be brain damaged? Would I walk again? Talk again? Play sports again?

  After three very difficult days, of which I had no memory, I regained consciousness. It was early morning of the fourth day, Monday, July 21.

  I awoke slowly, groggily, with a strange sensation in my head. It was the sound of glorious music dying away, as if I had just heard the last note of a crescendo that was resonating in the air after it had been played. Now other sounds pushed themselves into the foreground—the sound of rubber-soled shoes scurrying dutifully about in the hallway, of people’s voices muffled outside my door, of wheels rolling over linoleum.

  I tried to remember where I was. I had a dim memory that it was a hospital, but no memory of what had put me there. Pain smoldered throughout my body, although the drugs kept it from flaring up and raging out of control. It also kept me from thinking straight. What happened? How did I get here?

  A nurse in a pair of those rubber-soled shoes, with one of those muffled voices, quietly stepped onto the linoleum that led to my bed, careful not to disturb me. She smiled while she checked the IVs. I tried to speak, but my voice was garbled. And when I did speak, I felt this tearing sensation as if my face were being ripped open.

  The nurse looked at me, studying the reactions in my good eye. “Hello, Dale,” she said. “How do you feel? Can you hear me?”

  This is hard to explain, but I felt an immediate and overwhelming love for this woman. It wasn’t romantic. Nothing like that. It was deeper than that, purer. I wanted to talk with her, to thank her for helping me, but I couldn’t. Most of all, I wanted to encourage her by telling her just how much God loved her.

  Much of my face and all of my head were covered in bandages. I had stitches in my right eye, and the lid itself had been stitched shut. I could see clearly out of my left eye, but something was different.

  The first words I remember saying were “What happened to my eyes?” I wasn’t referr
ing to the stitches or the bandages. Even though only one eye was working, it seemed as if I was looking out of both of them. I was seeing with what seemed to be two perfectly healthy eyes. But they were not only healthy, they were strengthened somehow. Nothing looked the same.

  It felt as if I were seeing a new dimension, like 4-D, another level of reality. It was as if I had seen the world through a filter all my life, like a film had been over my eyes all these years and now that film was removed. In a very real sense, I was seeing with new and strengthened eyes.

  That’s how I was seeing this nurse. I had never met her, didn’t even know her name. It was not a human love, I was sure of that. It was God’s love. I felt as if I were a vessel through which His love was flowing. Does she know Jesus? was the first thought that came to my mind. I had met a lot of women in college, and I wondered a lot of things about them. I thought the same things any nineteen-year-old boy would think. Thoughts about appearance. Thoughts about personality. Thoughts about sense of humor. But thoughts about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and whether they knew Him? It wasn’t even on my radar screen.

  The next thoughts were What if she has an accident and dies? What then? Will she go to heaven?

  I couldn’t remember ever having thoughts like this about people. It was strange. Again, it was like seeing in a new dimension. Like watching a 3-D movie with unaided eyes, then suddenly putting on the 3-D glasses. Something indeed had happened to my eyes. And it was infinitely deeper than the gash. If anything, the gash I experienced was severing the veil that separated the physical dimension from the spiritual.

  When she left the room, I reflected on the encounter. What is happening to me? Why am I . . . But before I could think anything else, the drugs lulled me back to sleep.

  I woke to a doctor standing beside my bed. “Good morning, Dale. I’m Dr. Graham. How are you doing today?”

  The same feeling came over me. I felt enormous love for this stranger standing beside me. Why? I wondered. I had never met him before. Didn’t know anything about him, except what he just told me.