A plane crash survivor, Michelle Dussan, has shared in detail her experience during the plane crash that killed about 159 people including her family members.
Dussan was among the four survivors of the American Airlines flight 965 that crashed into a mountain in
Buga, Colombia.
The incident was earlier
attributed to human error but a recent investigation showed that the reason for the crash is becoming more controversial.
In a chat with Other People's Lives on its YouTube channel, Dussan gave a detailed account of how her journey into the crash started and life after the crash.
“So it was
the first time that we were flying as a family. My mom, my dad and my brother,
and I. My brother had already been to Colombia before with my dad and my mom
but I hadn't. It was the first time I was meeting my dad's side of the family
over there. It was supposed to be the biggest Christmas family reunion on that
day. I remember we were rushing that morning.”
“We were taking a flight
from Jersey and then to Miami and then from Miami to Colombia. There was a big
snowstorm that day and the flights were delayed. We almost flipped over on the
way to the airport because of the ice on the road that morning and once we got
there. It was the first time I was on a plane and I was just super excited to
be with my mom and my dad. As far as that I remember and then just having a
little argument with my brother right before the plane started having
difficulties. We were fighting over the window seat so he got mad and he left
and went to the other aisle to sit with my cousin.”
“From what my dad said,
there was a really strong vibration that the plane started shaking and then the
lights were flashing, they went off and everybody started screaming. I
had just turned six and my brother had just turned 13 in September. Waking up
after the plane crashed, I remember waking up and I knew I didn't know exactly
what was going on but I knew that I wasn't in my bed. I was like I know
something happened I’m not in my bed I’m not in New Jersey.”
“I remember being on the
flight. I just had no idea we had crashed and I just remember hearing the
murmurs of people. I remember hearing a lot of cries for help, remember waking
up and that's when I started shouting for help as well I started shouting for
help in English and in Spanish. I remember it was just super super dark. I
didn't know that I was like in the middle of the plane.”
“I was literally with my
seat belt. I was buried from the waist down and I didn't know at the time. I
was buried for 13 hours because the flight crashed at night but they didn't
find it till the next day. We were in like the mountain in Buga. In Colombia,
it's called Buga, the place where we crashed and it was freezing, I remember it
was so cold. A lot of the people that were injured and there a lot of people
were alive but a lot of people died because of hypothermia, because of the
cold.”
“My brother was alive and
he died at the hospital during surgery. A lot of people were alive, the plane
crashed at night they didn't find it until the next day so a lot of people died
because of the cold. A lot of people were freezing. When I started yelling for
help, my dad heard me and my dad was like oh my god, my daughter is alive. He
said that he felt my mom's leg but it was cold and he didn't know that she was
dead at the moment but he just thought like oh okay well, it's freezing up here
it's probably because of the cold then he heard me and he tried to get to me
because my dad had a fractured spine. I don't even… because of God and our
faith, now that we believe in God and Jesus. I know that it was God that helped
him get to me because there was no scientific way possible that my dad could
have reached me with a fractured spine.”
“He said he literally had
to drag himself with his hands. He said when I heard him, the first words that
came out of my mouth to him were dad I’m really thirsty, I want water and he's
like okay okay you know I'm gonna try to get you out. He tried to get me out
but I was like no no, I was in pain. My legs were hurting. I didn't know at the
time that I was buried and that's why he wasn't able to get me out but his
first reaction was I need to get my daughter out of here so he dragged himself
and that's when he started seeing everybody around him and all the on top of
each other and the other two survivors that are still alive today.”
“The paramedics were like
on foot up the mountain when they found me they literally took parts of the
plane and made a bed out of it. It took three hours for them to bring me down
and finally they brought us up in a helicopter and they flew us to the
hospital. I remember, a lot of chaos and I just wanted my mom at that point.
Never gonna forget that feeling of I want my mom. I do remember that I kept
asking my dad where's my mom where's my brother and my dad told me she was on a
trip and she was gonna be gone but she would come back soon and then obviously
when I got older, they were like your mom is in heaven. The doctors told my dad
I would never walk in my life that I would be in a wheelchair forever. I had
years of therapy, it was very painful. I had to learn how to walk and the only
way that I was walking at that time was with these braces that they gave me at
the hospital.”
“I remember hating to wear
those because they were so uncomfortable and that was the only way that I could
walk if I wasn't in a wheelchair but currently, thank God to the miracle that
he made I fully walk, my legs are fully functional. I never
thought that I would ever heal from something like this, the miracles that God
has made in my life is the reason why I owe my life to him.”
Image credit: Wikipedia.
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