,INTO BLACK – THE ANATOMY OF A CRASH:
The cable was about 100 feet directly ahead of us, and I was the first to see a glimmer of it coming at 70mph. I yelled “Look out, look out, look out!” and the pilot instantly dropped the collective. In less than a second we were in a steep dive. The next second was timeless and quiet while the wire passed overhead and out of view. Then the cable ripped into the rotors and yanked us to a stop while it tore the entire tail of the helicopter away and dropped us toward the ground. If you’ve ever totaled a car you can imagine the raw volume and violence a fragile human being experiences inside of a metal container that’s being twisted and torn apart. Its so incredibly loud and powerful. And just one of a thousand flying pieces could cut you in half as if you were made of warm butter. The pilot, camera operator and I were just three small parts of a machine that was being ripped apart in mid air. When nothing was left to keep us airborne, we dropped. And I clearly remember my front seat view of the dirt coming up at us like a fly swatter. Again it was timeless, and the moment is deeply carved into my mind. I remember the feeling in my stomach as we dropped, and the pieces and parts that floated in and around our wrecked cabin. Keep in mind that we’re only two or three seconds into the crash and other than the very present violent moment, there was nothing, no fear, no apprehension, nothing but the moment, and a question in my mind. “What’s it going to be like when everything goes black?”.
Here’s what it’s like.
We were flying over the Arizona desert in an A-Star helicopter to scout a location for a TV show. Production had a large RV decked out with the their logo, and our pilot descended to film the RV as it rolled down the highway. As we flew alongside, the pilot was literally looking back at the camera monitor to check the shot. That was when the sun reflected a quick blink of light, and I saw the cable.
A second before I saw it, our pilot was flying like a complete bonehead. Flying low through an unknown area is risky, and doing it without even looking forward was flat out reckless. But the second I said look out, his reaction was instant and perfect. Instinctually, a pilot would pull up or try to stop. Had he pulled up, the skids would have caught the cable, flipped the helicopter, and killed us all. If he tried to stop, the cable would have ripped through the cabin and cut us in half. I’m standing here this evening because the pilot put the helicopter into a dive.
In the production RV, all they saw was the helicopter disintegrate and crash into the ground sending up a huge plume of dirt and dust. No one thought that any of us had survived.
So here’s what black was like. Black was a deafening thud as the cabin broke and compressed around us. The dust was so thick I couldn’t see anything and again the moment became timeless. We crashed into the dirt and rolled and then everything stopped. There was only the sound of dirt raining down on the cabin and the whining of the engine as it spun down.
I felt no pain, no real sensation at all. I was just there, and I thought, this is what black is. I’m dead, or I must be dead, and this is what death feels like. Like you’re an observer and you continue to experience what’s around you, but you feel nothing, you’re just there.
The first thing I recall feeling was the dirt in my eyes and crunching in my teeth. Then I felt myself gasping and choking on the thick dust because the wind had been knocked out of me. Then, like a computer that was booting up, I felt all systems coming online.
There was blood on my pants and sleeves, and I was hanging in my seatbelt with my nose bleeding and ears ringing. The pain was real, and I was alive! And I could hear the other guys stirring in the cabin. Somehow we’d all survived.
The door to my left had blown off and I could see the opening above me through the brown light of the sun filtering into the cabin. I unclipped my seatbelt and began to climb, up and into the next chapter of my life.