Brace for Impact: Miracle on the Hudson Survivors Share Their Stories of Near Death and Hope for New Life - Softcover

Preface

When I lived in the Hudson River Valley, I loved taking long walks along the Hudson in all four seasons. I always thought there was something different about that river. Something majestic, something old, something . . . mysterious. That's what I was thinking while I watched one of the evening news magazine shows two days after the Hudson River miracle plane crash on January 15, 2009. Like millions of people everywhere, I had seen the initial reports and needed to see more. The more I saw, the more mesmerized I became.

Then I thought about Charlotte, the planned destination of US Airways Flight 1549. I lived there for seven years while a sports reporter for The Charlotte Observer, back when newspapers were still vibrant and Michael Jordan was a college kid. What must it have been like to be sitting in that plane heading to Charlotte and winding up crashing in the river, then walking away from it, I wondered. As I learned more details about just how unfathomable this whole near-death experience had been, I felt a stirring. What just happened here? What did it mean?

'You have to write a book about this!' my wife, Krista, blurted out.
'I know,' I said. 'It's the passengers. . . . There's something here, something important.'

As a counselor, personal historian, and teacher of memoir-writing classes, I have long been drawn to explore how dramatic life experience can serve as a gateway to a profound new perspective or approach to life. But how would I even find these 150 passengers? What would I say if I did find them? How would I earn the trust of people whose lives had just been turned upside down by a combination of terror and jubilation, all about a half-hour apart? How would I explain why I wanted to write such a book, and why on earth they might consider joining me?

Two days later I was making initial phone calls. I tried to find the right words. 'I do not mean to disturb you during this traumatic time,' I would begin. 'It's just that I feel this . . . calling.'

And so began my connection with dozens of passengers of Flight 1549. I followed a trail that led me on many twists and turns. When the task of somehow bringing together a sizable group of passengers who hardly knew one another initially appeared too daunting, I worked with one passenger. Then, as they began to bond in cyberspace and in person, I shifted course and reached out to a larger contingent of survivors and first responders.

With the scope of the project expanding, I knew I needed a partner to assist me. That was an easy choice: Dorothy Firman, a friend and colleague who had coauthored three of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Thankfully, she said yes right away, and she kept saying yes through the many days and weeks when she could have found so many very good reasons to say no. I can't imagine anyone who could have more clearly grasped what this book was about, and what it could be, nor anyone who could smoothly cocreate pivotal decisions while in the midst of a long trip to Russia, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, presenting on her own books.
Momentum for our book began to gather, then disperse across different paths, then gradually return in a new configuration. All along we held to an idea. All along we have felt honored and deeply appreciative of the connections we have forged with these wonderfully 'ordinary' people from Flight 1549.

Now they are here, willing to share who they are and what happened to them, and to try to make some sense out of this celebrated second chance at life. They're here because one way or another they too sense that there's more going on than an uplifting story that captured a public starved for positive news in troubled times.

None of us can know, of course, but we wonder. Not just about the details but the meaning. Could it be that the more we open ourselves to the inspiring lessons and messages this miracle may hold for us, the more our own hearts will be stirred? Could it be that somewhere in those poignant images of passengers standing so peacefully and confidently on the water-covered wings lay the seeds that can help us find the courage, strength, and faith that we as individuals and as a nation need today?

That's what I wanted to explore from that moment two days after the miracle. That's what I am continuing to explore. And that's what we invite you to explore with us.

―Kevin Quirk

©2009. Dorothy Firman, Kevin Quirk. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Brace for Impact. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442