Escape With One's Life

Book excerpt: Escape With One's Life-Learning to live with survival is the story of a commercial air flight from San Jose, Costa Rica to Tegucigalpa, Honduras on October 21, 1989. After a short stopover in Managua, the Continental Airlines leased plane crashed into a mountainside near the Honduran capital. The author is one of fifteen survivors among the 146 people on board including thirteen North Americans. The book focuses on why the fifteen survivors were flying that day and how each of them miraculously escaped the inferno that ensued shortly after the Boeing 727-200 failed to reach its intended destination. Eyewitness accounts describe courageous and heroic actions of both survivors and local residents. Nine years after the crash, the author decided to document the experience when he watched another survivor being interviewed on Spanish language television about her survival and her support for burn victims in Nicaragua. Escape With One's Life describes the effect the tragedy had on the lives of the survivors and the family members of deceased passengers. The author's journey to understand the trauma and heal from it are the central thrust of the book with particular emphasis on the impact of trauma, the author's struggles to understand his inner conflicts and to eventually overcome them through the process of documenting his experience. Escape is a gripping account of survival and how numerous people overcame pain and suffering to move ahead with their lives.