George's plane after the crash.
I was sleeping in my bed on August 21st when the phone rang at about 3:15 am. Confused and frightened, I picked it up. It was a nurse calling from an emergency room. She asked if I was Lisa Maddox, and told me that my husband, George Maddox, had been involved in and accident and that I should come immediately to the emergency room. I assumed that she was talking about our local emergency room in Pennsylvania, but she was actually calling from Livingston, New Jersey.
George had been involved in an airplane crash and had been taken to the burn unit at St. Barnabus Hospital. She told me he was asking for me, that I should come immediately. I asked, “Is he burned?” A long pause. “Yes,” she said, and my world stopped.
I was shaking. Livingston is two and a half hours from our home. I tried to get more information since I simply could not imagine waiting that long to find out more about his condition. “Is he alive?” I asked. “I can’t give out information over the phone,” she answered. “Please! I can’t drive two hours without knowing. Is he dead?” I begged. “No, he’s not dead,” she answered. “Just come.”
I jumped out of bed. My daughter, Lily, who was sleeping in bed with me as she sometimes does when George is flying, was awake and crying. “What happened,” she asked. “Is Daddy dead?” “No, but we have to hurry!” I said. I tried to keep calm. I didn’t know the details. He had given the nurse my name and phone number, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. I looked at Lily. She was crying, had put on a pair of shorts and then jeans over them and was tangled and confused. I helped her dress and then threw on whatever I saw.
I called Quest Diagnostics dispatch and asked them if there was a confirmed crash. They said they didn’t know anything about it. A few minutes later the phone rang again and they said they were sending someone to drive me to the hospital.
Lily and I ran outside. We stood watching for the car. My phone rang. It was Frank, a mechanic at Quest, calling me to ask where my house was. He was very close by and I saw him and flagged him down. I was glad it was Frank. He is one of the few people I know from George’s job, and nice guy. He was as panicked as we were. He threw a ladder and a baby seat on our lawn from his back seat, and we jumped in. We took off down the highway for New Jersey. Suddenly I realized we could use one of the Quest planes to get there quickly. Frank made a quick call and turned the car around on the grass highway divider. We were at the airport.
A few minutes later we were in the air, my stomach a knot, Lily looking so scared in her seat. It seemed it took about five minutes for the half hour trip to be over. I had grabbed a notebook on the way out of the house. In it, I wrote, “George, you are the love of my life. The only other person who ever knew me and loved me unconditionally for who I am. I will do anything to help you get through this.” I looked up from the notebook and we were landing in New Jersey.
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{ 3 comments }
~Peace be with you~
Thanks for sharing. see you in atlanta…
keep writing!!
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