Taking Flight: A Daughter’s First Hero

Complete and catastrophic engine failure.

Emergency crash landing in rural Georgia.

Being airlifted to the nearest trauma center.

My head spinning with the news sitting in bed forcing my eyes open in the early morning hours here on Maui, talking to my sister @ashleybrigham in Birmingham.

Alive. They survived. This is what we clung to.

As all of the pieces and details started to slowly come into focus, my brain immediately kicked into Doctor mode that they were trauma patients who had lived through a catastrophic mechanical plane failure and subsequent crash.

This is the ongoing story for our family. And one now written into the fibers of my soul, and intention to share with our greater ‘ohana here. We’re so grateful for the overwhelming support, well wishes, good vibes, and prayers.

This is the story of the legend of Leon. The pilot we’ve known all our lives. He first flew at age 14. Ashley and I used to giggle being in that little Piper plane my Dad once had in the early 80s- two little girls just flying over Disney World with their Dad. How cool is that? Life went on and the plane was sold and growing up continued. Soccer games and gymnastics meets, family trips all over the country (their goal was to have us visit all 50 states by the time we graduated from high school!), and always the passion for planes and aviation remained.

When I picture his nightstand there next to their canopy bed, there is always the latest copy of Flying Magazine perched there. This was a constant and a dream never far tucked in his heart.

Fast forward to 2021. His daughters live in Maui and in Birmingham, AL with their families and he is recently retired as of March 31st. He has worked in the family business for over 50 years. His dream of owning a plane again is finally realized in this Mooney 231 or M20K. He completes all of his flight hours, training, and solo flights in collaboration with FAA requirements, documenting his return to soar the skies and all of his contagious enthusiasm with us.

He was recently in Maui last month visiting us after 13 long months apart, and on our way to snorkel in Lanai he told us about his plans and excitement to fly up to Birmingham and for a special 5th grade graduation and birthday celebration.

So in those early hours as our Dad Leon and our strong, independent and well traveled Mom Sharon (she is a former Pan Am Flight Attendant and all around fierce female) took off from the Orlando-Apopka airport full of anticipation for the festivities ahead, they could never have predicted what was to come.

What we do know is that our first hero for us as daughters in our Dad is more vividly illustrated than ever in the heroic efforts he demonstrated to save his life as well as that of our Mom. And that our She-ro in Sharon with the tenacity we have known and seen all our lives would again prove to be one of her greatest assets in their survival.

Ashley stood poised at the tarmac in Birmingham ready and excited to greet them upon arrival. Somewhere, around 8,000 feet over Georgia airspace they experienced complete and catastrophic engine failure.

In the face of complete chaos and no power, they were able to remain composed enough to accomplish the crash landing to come. In aviation, you’re taught the ABCs (which mean something completely different to us in medicine- Airway, Breathing, Circulation), but to our Dad he was likely calculating: Airspeed, Best place to land, and Communication with air traffic control, if possible.

And so he landed, y’all. In Terrell County near US Highway 82, also known as Graves Highway, the irony is not lost on us. The landing gear could not be deployed. The flaps were not available either. The FAA literature states that flaps can help with landing by producing greater lift, permitting lower landing speed, producing greater drag, permitting steep descent angle without airspeed increase, and reducing the length of the landing roll. None of this was available to him.

With visions of his life with his wife of 39 years (40 this September), daughter awaiting his arrival in Birmingham and grandsons for the weekend, daughter in Maui and all the recent memories we just made likely flashing through his mind…. He also had to choose to focus on giving them the best chance of survival in the worst case scenario.

I wonder what their dialogue was like from that 8,000 foot controlled-ish fall from the sky to that Georgia highway. I’m so glad we get to find out. That we get to be together and were given the gift of more life. To celebrate the legend of our Dad and that flowing down from our Grandad, Rex Huffman, an ex WWII pilot no doubt looking down with beaming approval from his heavenly heights.

And oh, the landing was not on a barren rural GA road. No, there were homes, power lines, trees, and cars, as in active traffic, to contend with. He mentioned to my sister that he saw an opening between two cars and went for it. So this powerless, complete engine failure hunk of metal with our people, our parents, came crashing down in the morning hours of May 20th, 2021 in Terrell County, GA.

My sister Ashley got the call from EMS from my Dad’s cell phone. This is after she checked their flight path on Flight Aware, saw them make a u-turn and then disappear completely off the radar. Her world rocked as news of the crash was relayed, and their status to be airlifted to Columbus, GA for further triage and medical care.

When she would later revisit the site of the crash to retrieve a few belongings from the plane, the NTSB would be on site taking the plane apart and away for a complete investigation. They commented upon overhearing her conversation with our Dad that they rarely hear the pilot’s voice on the other end in these scenarios. Chills. Holding space in our souls for the miracle we know we were granted this May Day. Pun not initially intended, but now intended. May Day! A Pilot, Husband, Father, Grandfather’s Mayday call on that 20th Day of May.

We would come to find out our Mom was none too stoked to have fallen out of the sky only moments earlier to be placed back in another aircraft. So thank you to the trauma transport team whose hand she squeezed en route to Columbus in that helicopter.

I’m the Physician in our family and my medical training and expertise is something I’m so grateful to be able to provide our family in this crisis, and also in this triumph of their lives.

I have had the pleasure and honor of being able to collaborate with my medical colleagues in ER, Trauma, Neurosurgery and Orthopedics-Spine and family contacts from across the country and to coordinate + execute a direct transfer within an amazingly short time frame from the initial receiving facility in Columbus, GA to UAB in Birmingham and the trauma service.

Our Dad sustained a complete burst fracture to his T12 vertebrae with bone fragments dislodging into his spinal cord from the force of the impact. He underwent emergent spinal decompression for concerning neurological examination, imaging providing radiographic evidence of injury severity, and to prevent impending and potentially irreversible paralysis. He will require intensive inpatient rehabilitation to regain mobility and function of the lower limbs. We have every confidence and optimism that the legend of Leon will continue to unfold.

His humor intact, when wheeled into the room they shared as trauma roomies that first night he said, “Well Sharon, till death do us part!”

Unfortunately, our Mom’s wedding ring was misplaced and is currently lost amidst taking them off for initial scans. We are holding out hope it will turn up, but also aware that their lives and the opportunity to make it to their 40th anniversary and beyond this year symbolizes their marriage in a new and profound way.

Our Mom sustained fractures to her T11, T12 and L1 vertebrates with a complete burst fracture to T12. Although her spinal cord wasn’t immediately compromised, the fragments threatened, and she just emerged from spinal stabilization surgery with screws earlier on the day I sat down to compose this.

We are manifesting continued miracles in their recovery. This is the story of their resilience, of our family harmony in navigating the road ahead, of giving gratitude for the dislodged gravel and skid marks which now graffiti that Georgia highway. Of landing in our new normal with hands outstretched for the crash and the current reality that we get to be a part of this story of healing. Holding space for the stratosphere’s which carry our parent’s passion to fly, our families love of travel, and our belief that there is a purpose in all things. That all things are working out for our highest good. There may have been no power that day. Be we believe there was a Higher Power. And that God is with us throughout it all.

Aviation takes meticulous planning, attention to detail, communication, focus, grit and determination. All of the attributes that our pilot Dad will utilize in his healing journey ahead. We are manifesting that our Mom may even be able to walk out of the hospital later this week with her fancy new spinal screws en vogue.

We know that if one day Dad wants to greet the friendly skies again, he will do so in all of his glory and with the scars and spinal hardware that pay homage to his heroic efforts on that day.

With eternal gratitude and enduring aloha for all involved and all the altitudes of support we are receiving,

The Daughter + the Doctor,

Anik Huffman Cockroft, DO