THE CRASH
Jack Harper sat in the seat of the small airplane and started the engine. The engine whirred, coughed, and then began to get going with vigor. Jack made sure the controls were set just right in the lit up dash. Everything looked okay and he increased the engine speed and the aircraft began to make its way down the runway. In a short while, the airplane lifted of the runway and just cleared the trees at the end of the runway. The aircraft slowly lifted itself up higher into the sky and Jack smiled and looked around at the tree tops and the river, which was less than a mile away from the small airport.
He had been flying for just over 3 years. He loved flying the small airplane that he was flying. He couldn’t have afforded to buy his own airplane, so he and his dad had built the small airplane at a slow pace. It had taken them around a year to finish the project. The airplane had a wooden frame, and had a canvas covering that was covered with a waterproof substance that they had found out about by doing research online. They named the little airplane THE WIND GLIDER since it seemed to glide through the sky whenever they flew it. Of course, the airplane wasn’t really a “Glider” since it had an engine to power it through the sky. But that name just felt right to them, and a person or persons who build an airplane can name it anything they like if it is not an already registered name.
Jack was looking at the scenery down below, when he heard the engine sputter. He looked at the controls and the controls didn’t indicate a problem of any kind. He thought little about it and began to look at the beautiful scene below. Thousands of trees were lit up in the midday sunshine. He looked at the long winding river and thought that it would be nice to be canoeing or kayaking along the body of water. He imagined how he could catch a large trout or a few bream and cook it or them over the coals of a fire. He loved such outdoor adventures. His dad, his brother, and he, had been on several camping trips back when he was a boy. But they hadn’t been on a camping trip in many years. He was over 40 years old now, and flying was the most adventurous thing that he had done in years. His dad was always busy with his appliance repair business and he hardly ever had any free time.
Get Michael Wendell Mosley’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Jack was still thinking about how wonderful it would be to go canoeing, kayaking, or camping, when suddenly the engine quit running. He tried his best to get the engine started again, but it was all in vain. He readied himself for the inevitable. The airplane would crash, and there was no way out of the situation. He braced himself and he placed his arms over his face as the aircraft clipped the first tree top that it reached. Then more and more tree tops were hit. The airplane hit the ground at a glancing angle and came to a stop around two hundred feet from where it had hit the first tree top. The impact with the ground knocked Jack out, and he lay there unconscious for quite a while as the airplane emitted little puffs of smoke, and gaseous fumes were all around, and must have been what finally brought him to consciousness. When he came to, and realized where he was, and what had happened, he made an evaluation of his condition. The pain in his left leg below the knee let him know that his leg was either fractured or broken. He felt of the leg, and resigned himself to the fact that the leg was broken. He unhooked the seat belt that had held him in place during the crash, and he crawled out of the broken window of the airplane. When he landed on the ground, he let out a grunt from the pain that shot through his leg. He decided to try to make some kind of splint for the leg, and by tearing one of his shirts into strips, and using them to bind together two sticks that he found close by, he was able to make a makeshift splint. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job of holding his broken leg in place.
It was around 1pm when he started trying to make his way through the woods. The radio had been destroyed in the crash, so he couldn’t just radio for help. He would have to try to walk toward a town. It would be rough, but it was the only option at the moment. So, he slowly ambled along and managed to walk for a distance of three miles by nightfall. He was a smoker, and so he had a half pack of cigarettes and a lighter with about half the fluid still left in it. After resting a while, he felt around in the dark for fallen limbs and straw. He lit the wood and straw and soon had a nice little fire going. As he sat there warming himself by the fire, he could hear the calls of coyotes in the nearby woods. He wished that he had a gun of some kind, but he had no weapons to fight against wild animals but the fire that he stayed close to. Wild animals have a fear of fire, and for good reason. Every now and then, Jack had heard on news programs that animals were harmed or killed by forest fires. Even human beings sometimes are harmed or killed by forest fires. So, he stayed close to his fire and felt assured that no harm would come to him as long as he didn’t let the flame go out.
The morning light came early as always, and the light fog floated like a ghost over the ground. Jack had no time for admiring the fog. He got up from the ground and he let out a little grunt from the pain in his left leg. Then he put out the fire, and started walking again. He didn’t know exactly which direction he was going, but he thought that he might be going in a south-easterly direction. With each and every step he made on the splinted leg, he could feel a little jolt of pain. He couldn’t keep himself from thinking about how many painful miles there was to go before he could get medical help and something to eat that was real food. He had tried to chew on a few acorns, and a few pine tree seeds, but those hardly took the place of a cheeseburger and fries or a piece of fried chicken. The thought of those foods made him feel even more hungry, so he tried his best to block those thoughts out of his mind.
He walked and he walked and eventually he came to an old dirt road that had been used by loggers in the past. He decided to follow the old roadbed and he hoped that it would lead him to some form of civilization. And it did. Two days later, the road came up to a paved highway. Jack stood on the highway and he listened. Not a sound, other than the sounds of nature came to his ears. He decided to walk down the road in an easterly direction (But he didn’t actually know that it went toward the east). He was tired, hungry, and fed up with the situation that he was in. He had walked for over four miles, when he heard the distinct sound of a truck coming. Tears came to his eyes. He would finally have a chance to be rescued. When the old truck came within close proximity to where he stood, he waved frantically. The man driving the truck saw that he was injured and could tell that something had happened to him. He stopped the old vehicle. “What’s going on?” he asked. Jack pointed to the woods. “I’ve crashed my plane and have walked for many miles through the woods.” The man in the truck looked surprised. “My God, man. You’re lucky to be alive.” Jack shook his head in agreement. “Yes, I am.” The man hopped out of his truck and helped Jack get into the truck on the passenger side. Then he ran around to the driver’s side and hopped in. “Man, I’ll get you to the hospital as quick as I can.” And he drove the old vehicle at a fast rate of speed until he reached the nearby town of Bixley. Then he rushed his passenger to The Bixley General Hospital and he jumped out and ran into the building. In just a few minutes, a pretty lady pushing a wheelchair came up to the side of the old truck. The man who had found Jack, helped him into the wheelchair, and the pretty little lady pushed her injured patient into the emergency room.
As Jack and his new friend, the truck driver, sat around waiting for Jack to be seen by the doctor, Jack couldn’t keep himself from thinking about how he could have been killed in the crash. And he was surely thankful to the Good Lord above that he wasn’t. Yes, he was surely thankful that he wasn’t.
