Innocence Lost
I had only been at the Command Center for about four months breaking-in as a Search and Rescue Controller under Lieutenant “Brown” when we received the emergency call from our local Coast Guard station at the Port of Miami. The day had been fairly uneventful at the U.S. Coast Guard Command Center in Miami, Florida where I worked. By uneventful, I mean no one had died on my watch…yet. As the lead controller, Lt. “Brown” answered the phone first and as the assistant break-in, I listened in on the conversation from my phone.
“Coast Guard search and rescue, this is Lt. “Brown”. What’s your emergency?”
“Sir,” said the watchstander at Group Miami, “We received a report from the FAA of a possible downed plane in the Straits (of Florida) between here and the Bahamas. They said they noticed the plane losing altitude quickly and then it disappeared off their radars.”
“Okay,” replied Lt. “Brown”, “Do you have an approximate position, tail number of the plane and POB (persons on board)?”
“We have the approximate position and tail number, but nothing else.”
After receiving the information from the watchstander, Lt. “Brown” called all the airfields in the western Bahamas until he found the one the plane departed from. The airfield manager stated the plane had left hours ago and was bound for Miami. The trip should have taken only about half-an-hour and there were no stopovers planned. He also stated there were two POB, a man, and his five-year-old son. I immediately felt a chill go down my spine because when children are involved there is even more of a sense of urgency to locate them.
Using the information we were given, Lt. “Brown” and I used confidential databases to find contact information on the next-of-kin. We were hoping they could give us more information to locate the father and son. Maybe they knew of an alternative destination or maybe the father had a cell phone in the plane. After many phone calls and with some luck we were able to track down the pilot’s estranged wife. At first, we only told her that the plane had not landed in Miami when they were supposed to so we were making the routine phone calls to locate them and close the case. So, with her mind at ease, but still apprehensive, she confirmed the flight information that we already knew. She also added that it was supposed to be a day trip to the Bahamas and back. A father and son outing that the child was excited about. Anyone who has ever been in this situation knows you give just enough information in the beginning to satisfy the next-of-kin, but not enough to make them worry and become too stressed out to be helpful. After promising her we would call when we located her husband and son, we immediately hung up and plotted the search grid on a chart based on the last known position of the plane. We then launched a Coast Guard HH60 Jayhawk search and rescue helicopter from Airstation Miami to locate the plane in the waters of the Florida Straits.
While the helicopter was conducting the search, Lt. “Brown” and I had talked to the mother several times, reassuring her that we had not found the plane yet, which was good news in our book. Despite our calm demeanors and confidence, I could sense she didn’t really believe everything was okay. Shortly after hanging up with her, we got a call on the radio from the lead helicopter pilot. “Command Center, we found a plane on the bottom of the straits in about 30 feet of water and it’s upside down.”
I enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1997 just before my 23rd birthday. I knew when I joined that being older than most of the other recruits would be a benefit because I had more life experience. Before joining the Coast Guard I had been a Navy brat moving from town to town and state to state. I experienced more than most kids my age and learned a lot about people and society from all the moving around. Even after joining the Coast Guard, I still had a big head on my shoulders and thought nothing could affect me emotionally. After all, I made it through boot camp without a hitch and didn’t think it was that difficult. I was absolutely sure I could handle any situation thrown at me.
I rose to the challenge of military life and advanced through the ranks very quickly. My Coast Guard ship based out of Alameda, California even had the honor of sailing with a Navy battle fleet into the Persian Gulf to enforce international laws for six months in my first tour of duty. Talk about a tense situation to be in. I had a highly stressful job of being a Combat Information Center supervisor during that patrol. That meant we dealt with secret stuff that no one else on the ship knew about. If only the others knew how close we were to missile sites in Iraq that could take us out in a heartbeat. Still, I wasn’t really fazed by any of this knowledge.
Once we returned home from the Persian Gulf, I transferred to the Command Center in Miami with my future wife, Heidi. I immediately started my mandatory nine-month break-in period to learn how to be a search and rescue controller. During the first four months, I had helped with cases that involved people dying, but they were all adults. Since I didn’t know them, the deaths of these people didn’t affect me much. I learned to shed the emotions and be strictly professional. Nothing could breach my soul.
Lt. “Brown” responded to the radio call and asked the pilot if they could positively identify the plane. They said no, but there was a tight debris field on the surface of the water which meant the plane had crashed within the last couple of hours. Shortly afterward, a Coast Guard small boat arrived on scene and started collecting the debris. Eventually, they called us on the radio and stated they found a red child’s shoe…with a severed foot still inside. Luckily for me, Lt. “Brown” was the lead controller so he made the dreaded phone call to the mother to ask what clothing the child was wearing that day. She correctly described the child’s clothing and shoes to a tee. My heart sank. I could see the displeasure on Lt. “Brown’s” face and noticed his face turning red. There was an uncomfortable silence after she spoke that probably lasted only a few seconds, but felt like an eternity. Finally, he said “Ma’am, unfortunately, I have some bad news. The shoe you described was found at the site of a plane crash in the Florida Straits. We believe it belongs to your son.” He couldn’t bring himself to flat-out say what needed to be said. All I could hear on the other end was light sobbing. And then “Oh, my god, Oh, my god,” over and over again. I wanted to hang up immediately and forget this case ever happened, but I couldn’t. Not only was it my military duty to listen and learn, but it was my duty as a person to experience this to make me a stronger yet, more compassionate and caring being. Eventually, the mother wasn’t able to form a cohesive thought and lost all control of her senses. Lt. “Brown” was able to get her in touch with a grief counselor to help her through this immense ordeal before hanging up.
After the phone call ended, I felt a deep sense of sadness. An innocent child lost his life for no good reason. His mother would most likely fall into a deep emotional abyss which would take a long time to crawl out of. Maybe she never would. As for myself, I lost my innocence as well that day. Up to this point in my life, I had never dealt with the death of someone close to me. I had never experienced an emotional upheaval such as the one that I just shared with a mother who lost her son. My ego and ignorance of life took a backseat to reality. I realized that you don’t truly start to live until your senses are pushed beyond their breaking points and you’re forced to evaluate life from this new perspective.
Innocence Lost
Research & References of Innocence Lost|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments