Remembering the Crash of United Airlines Flight 232
Remembering The Crash of
United Airlines Flight 232
vBy Julie Eickhoff
Mary Ann Blachnik will never forget the day that United Airlines
232 crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa twenty-nine years ago, nor the
events that transpired afterward. “It was a sad, sad day,” she recalls.
On Wednesday, July 19, 1989 she had just finished her shift as a
Medical Secretary at Marion Health Center (now known as Mercy
Medical Center) and the next shift was coming in to work. She recalls
what she saw that afternoon while driving south toward their home,
located south and west of the airport.
“I could hear all these sirens. I could see on the Interstate all these
fire trucks, ambulances and cop cars, and it was very, very windy and
very, very hot that day. I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, something terrible
has happened.’ In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think,
‘Maybe a plane crashed someplace.’”
Stepping inside their home to the phone already ringing, she could
see the answering machine message light blinking with new messages.
She turned on the news as she took a phone call and saw a news story
about a plane crash. A DC-10 had lost all flight controls due to failure
in the tail engine. The odds of this failure were only one in a billion
(USA Today). Witnesses state that the plane cartwheeled, flipping end
over end, sliding past the Sioux City airport runway into a corn field.
Of the 289 people on board, 111 died. Though a few walked away from
the crash, more than 150 victims still had to be admitted to the hospital
for treatment.
Her employer desperately needed her to come back to work.
Without hesitation, she let her dog out, took a deep breath, turned
around and went right back to the hospital. She recalls the chaos on
the route back to work as she weaved through the maze of vehicles
all heading to the airport to help. She pulled into a full parking lot at
Marion Health and people were running inside to help where they
could.
The trauma of the situation reflects in her voice as she becomes
emotional commending the doctors, nurses, and personnel who came
rushing to help. She explains that various departments from several
communities around the area arrived to help where needed.
Her normal role at the hospital was to disburse doctors’ orders from
the patient’s chart to the proper area such as x-ray or lab and assist in
answering the phones, often floating to other floors of the hospital. She
was often called to work in the Intensive Care Unit and remembers
that she was filling in on the neurological floor that day. When she
arrived back to work for the second time, she started assisting in
prioritizing the existing patient’s medical assistance needs. The ones
who were not as severe, such as the flu, were dismissed as they needed
to make room in the hospital for the incoming crash victims.
Crash victims began to be admitted, though at the time there
weren’t names available for the victims. Because they didn’t have any
information yet on the patients, they labeled the patient’s charts with
red, white and blue tape. Aside from this task, she assisted in answering
patient’s call lights when nurses were busy, bringing glasses of water to
patients requesting it and helping wherever she could.
She recalls a little eight-year old boy admitted who was flying with
his mom. He remained unconscious for two weeks as he stayed in the
hospital. She recalls his devastation when he woke up to learn that is
mom didn’t survive the crash. “I’ll never forget, that little boy raised up
his head and said, ‘Where’s my mom?’” She explains how that was one
of the saddest days she encountered and thinks of the little boy often.
“I’ll never forget that, ever.”
Through the tragedy and incredible sadness, she does recall a
humorous incident. A nun was admitted to the hospital after being
hung upside down by her feet during the crash, but she was not
severely hurt. As Blachnik was at the nurses’ desk one day, the nun
came walking up to her, laughing. When she asked Sister what she was
laughing at, the response was, “Well, Mary Ann, I’m so glad I had my
underwear on!” She’ll never forget that either.
After working through that night, she went home, took a shower
and went right back to work that Thursday morning, still running off
adrenaline and no sleep. That day, she worked in the ICU with several
personnel, taking phone calls of people calling in to inquire about
possible plane crash victims. It was a difficult task as the confidentiality
procedure of the hospital restricts them from giving out any personal
information. She recalls the pain of telling inquiring hospital visitors
that their loved ones were hurt.
Captain Haynes, the pilot, was located on her floor and she recalls
what a wonderfully kind, compassionate and brokenhearted man he
was. Policemen guarded the door to his room every minute of the day.
She remembers the media, NBC, CBS, National Inquirer, all standing
outside his door wanting to get in and talk to him.
Many events transpired in the days after the crash. She recalls EMT’s
and medical staff going out to the airport to search through cornstalks,
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