you were the soul survivor of an plane crash . it took a week to make your way the through difficult countryside village . describe the difficulties you encountered on the your way and your feeling when towards god
Answers
My head is light. The plants around me are radiant. I do not feel the pain any longer. I am both out of my body and close to my body. I have left, but I am present.
Darkness is mixed with brightness, the day with the night. I feel as protected as I possibly can be. I have surrendered myself completely. To the trees, the leaves, the crickets, the ants, the centipedes, life. Or is it to death I have surrendered? I am within the moment. A timeless moment of ecstatic freedom. A moment that gives me peace, unity and joy.
LIVING
I was the sole survivor of a plane crash — and spent 8 days in the jungle
By Jane Ridley
October 2, 2016 | 6:22am
Annette Herfkens revisits the crash site with rescuers in Vietnam in 2006.
Provided by Publisher
Former Wall Street trader Annette Herfkens, 55, a Dutch native now living on New York’s Upper East Side, was the sole survivor of a horrifying 1992 plane crash in Vietnam. At the time, she was 31, living in Madrid, and engaged to her boyfriend of 13 years — who died in the accident, along with the 22 other passengers and six crew members. Herfkens’ extraordinary memoir, “Turbulence,” is out Tuesday. She tells The Post’s Jane Ridley her inspiring story of physical and psychological endurance.
My head is light. The plants around me are radiant. I do not feel the pain any longer. I am both out of my body and close to my body. I have left, but I am present.
Darkness is mixed with brightness, the day with the night. I feel as protected as I possibly can be. I have surrendered myself completely. To the trees, the leaves, the crickets, the ants, the centipedes, life. Or is it to death I have surrendered? I am within the moment. A timeless moment of ecstatic freedom. A moment that gives me peace, unity and joy.
I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I guess I tumbled around in the cabin like a lonely piece of laundry in a clothes dryer, hitting my head and limbs against the ceiling and lockers. I may have been the only one not wearing a seat belt.
At some point I must have landed and slipped under a seat, legs first, and gotten stuck. This kept me in place for the second, bigger impact, which caused the plane to break up.
I concentrated on my survival. What alternative did I have? I painfully pulled myself around a small section of the wreckage, dragging my body by my elbows.
I stayed outside, because I couldn’t bear to see the corpses inside the plane. Once, I’d looked over at the man I’d been speaking to and a maggot crawled out of his eye. Those were terrifying images I didn’t want to see.
My main goal was drinking water to stay hydrated, something I did by collecting rainwater in small sponges. I fashioned the sponges from insulation I found near the shattered wing of the plane. Standing up to retrieve the insulation was torture, and putting one foot in front of the other impossible. I wrung the moisture from the sponges into my mouth. In a vain attempt to stay dry, I wore a blue plastic poncho I’d found in someone’s pack. But I didn’t take anything from anyone else. It didn’t seem appropriate.