Miracle On the Hudson

I just finished reading Miracle On The Hudson. The survivors formed a group and commissioned journalists to tell their story. It's a remarkable feat. Many pages cover the three minutes or so of the flight. Then the jumping into the water and getting out on the wings. And then the twenty four minutes that it took the ferries, boats, helicopters, and divers to save every single person on the plane.

There was one baby on the flight and the mother, at certain points of the escape from the plane and subsequent rescue, had to trust strangers with taking and hold her baby in precarious circumstances. That's the background you need for the first of the following three excerpts:

Damian was handed around the raft until his mother wedged herself in between others who made room. "Someone literally handed me the baby," said Beverly Mills. "He was just priceless. He screws up his face like he's gonna cry, and he looks at me... He starts playing with my earring. Now he's totally absorbed with this earring... I turned to the other people on the raft and said, 'Guys, I don't know how the rest of you are doing, but the baby is playing with my earring..." We spend a lot of time worrying about the future and regretting the past. We don't spend much time in the moment, and he was in the moment. It was pretty cool." (page 183)

A week after the accident Tripp Harris went to see his pastor in the hopes of making sense of it all. "There were so many things that had to line up. The right pilot on the right plane... My biggest question to my pastor was, 'If G-d put all these things together, why not just move the birds?" Harris was not being flip. His pastor told him that G-d moves birds for a lot of other planes, 'But this was a time when G-d needed to show that he can make miracles happen,' the pastor said. 'This was time when everyone around the world needed a miracle.' (page 206)

Michelle DuPonte had her dream wedding in February, in Hawaii, although the reception did not go exactly as she'd planned. It was better. Despite the bad economy, virtually every friend she's invited spent the money to attend the ceremony. 'Half the people who came couldn't afford to be there,' DuPonte said. 'Everyone was there to celebrate more than Dave and me getting married. It was a celebration of me being alive. Every speech talked about me living after that plane crash. Do you ever wonder how many people are going to attend your funeral? I feel like I have an idea.' (page 213)