It was a very cold and extremely snowy day on January 13, 1982 when I had to fly from the airport in Washington D.C to Florida to visit my grandparents. As I was driving to the airport, there was already about three inches of snow on the ground. When I got to the airport, I found a parking spot and went through security at about 9:45 in the morning and waited to get on the plane at 11:00. As I was waiting, I looked out the window and couldn’t see anything, which gave me a nervous feeling. Time passed very slowly, but eventually it was 11:00 and I got on the plane.

I sat and waited for a very long time before we took off at 4:00 because the plane needed to be de-iced. As the plane was leaving the ground, the man I was sitting next to kept saying that he knew something was wrong because we weren’t as high as we should be.

I tried not to look out of the window, so I closed my eyes for only a second before I heard a loud crash, and I knew we hit something. The plane crashed into the freezing cold water of the Potomac River and was starting to fill with the water.

I started to panic, but I told myself to stay calm. I unbuckled myself and swam out of a hole in the side of the plane. When I got above water, I looked up and saw that we had crashed into the 14th Street Bridge, the same bridge I has crossed earlier today. That thought quickly exited my mind because all I could think about was how cold I was.

I swam to grab a piece of something that fell of the plane when it hit the bridge to help me stay above water. It felt like I was floating in the water for a life time before I saw a helicopter fly over me with a rope. I grabbed on and started to come out of the water, but my hands were too cold. I fell back into the freezing water again. When the rope came by me again, I told myself I won’t let go again, and I didn’t.

When I finally was put back on land, two firefighters wrapped me in a blanket and put me in an ambulance that drove me to the Washington D.C Hospital. When I got there, the nurse said I would be okay.