First person account: Miracles do happen
By Court Koenning , Special to The Layman, December 28, 2011
Dawn, Cade, Carson and Court Koenning
As the trees began to brush the bottom of the plane I knew I was in a situation I wouldn’t be able to talk myself out of. And then, a split second later, a loud BOOM which I would later learn was my left wing being torn off by the top of a pine tree … I knew I was done. At approximately 100 feet in the air I knew the plane wasn’t high enough for the ballistic parachute to deploy, but I also knew the parachute wouldn’t help being in the plane either. So as I pulled the emergency handle to deploy the plane’s parachute, I said out loud “GOD, PLEASE SAVE ME.” It was then that I blacked out.
August 23, 2010, started out much differently as I took our 4 year old, Carson, to his first day of school at Holy Trinity Episcopal School. Our youngest, Cade (who was one at the time), stayed at home with my wife Dawn until the nanny arrived. After dropping Carson off at school, telling him to have a good day, saying goodbye and telling him I loved him, I headed to the private airport in Porter, Texas (north side of Houston). It would be a few hours of flying, a few hours of meetings and then back home in enough time to tell the kids good night after a long day. But that day would not end as I had planned.
After flying to pick up a couple colleagues just south of Austin, Texas, we headed to Dallas for our meetings. Earlier that evening I dropped them both off and then headed home stopping off in West Houston to refuel and meet a friend for a short visit. The short hop from West Houston to North Houston gives you enough time to plan and set yourself up for landing on the short and narrow runway with tall pine trees at the north end of the field in Porter. Did I mention the tall trees?
After checking the weather, I surmised the absence of a prevailing wind would allow me to land from the south and thus avoid those pesky trees on the north. As the gear touched down the plane bounced and would not settle back down on the runway. With a short field, I did not have the luxury of waiting for it to settle so I decided to go around and try the landing again. With full power, the plane would not climb as she should. “Climb baby, climb,” I said. But she wouldn’t climb like I needed her to. Then I heard the trees brushing the bottom of the plane. The same trees I was trying to avoid by landing from the south.
Then …
BOOM!!! I knew “it” was over.
As I reached up to pull the emergency handle for the ballistic parachute I said “God, please save me!”
The next thing I remember I was lying on the ground next to what was left of my airplane. The plane, full of fuel, sliced right through an old oak tree, went through the middle of high voltage power lines and made a large divot in Joey Branstetter’s back yard. According to the NTSB investigator, the parachute, (which should have been useless) ended up getting caught in the trees and slowed the plane’s downward momentum and changed the aircraft’s collision point from a direct head on impact to an impact just ever-so-slightly tilted more toward the passenger’s side of the plane. Each one of the “coincidences” saved my life, for now. Branstetter, who was in his bedroom some 100 feet from where the plane came to rest, ran out to see what the loud crash was. In the chaos, with the smell of aviation fuel in the air, he and his neighbor Christine Cook, risked their own lives to get me out of the wreckage even before emergency personnel could arrive. As I lay on the ground, I regained consciousness. I was meeting Cook for the first time and she attempted to keep me lucid and tried to determine if I had any passengers. Thankfully at that point, all I had were my guardian angels. I was trying my best to answer her questions. With a completely crushed face with nose pushed down to break even my palate, a face that would require nine plates and thirty-six screws to reconstruct, internal injuries that would not present themselves for several days; I bet I was a sight to see. She would later tell me after a few repetitive questions, I began to slip.
I was transported to Memorial Hermann in the Texas Medical Center by LifeFlight and would spend the next three weeks enduring a dozen inpatient surgeries and about half as many outpatient surgeries. After a couple days in the Shock Trauma Intensive Care Unit (STICU as it is commonly referred), my vital signs identified a body that was fighting for survival. The surgical trauma team, including the legendary Dr. Red Duke and Dr. John Holcombe (Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ lead surgeon), would soon discover that nearly all of my abdominal organs were severely injured in the blunt-force trauma each requiring delicate surgical repair. While most of the injured organs were repaired and/or removed, my pancreas, the one organ in which doctors are taught to avoid “messing” with, was severely damaged and it was poisoning the rest of my body. They caught it just in time.
This was all happening, unbeknownst to me, as I was sleeping; but most importantly dreaming. I have been asked “did you have the dream?” Not as I have seen it in the movies, but I had a dream that is still very vivid to me today. I found myself in a bus station, waiting for my bus. As I sat on the long wooden bench with no one to my immediate left or right, a police officer slowly walked by. Just as he passed me by he stopped and took one step back so that he was standing in front of me now. He looked down at me and said “you shouldn’t be here.” I just looked up at him, I assume expressionless. He continued “you need to go on back.” And with that I woke up laying in my hospital bed with my four year old, Carson, glaring at me. He said “I love you daddy.” “I told you not to fly that airplane,” he continued rather forcefully. As I wept, I said “I love you, too, buddy.”
“God, please save me!”
Miracles do happen.
I’m now looking for a new hobby. Any suggestions?