A Huge Scare in the Air

Nick called this afternoon.  At first I was surprised when I saw his number come up, but realized that Meg was talking to Maddy.  I thought that maybe he had a question about the upcoming engagement party and couldn't get ahold of her.  I knew that he was flying today, but until I heard his voice, I didn't think much about that.  

As soon as Nick started talking, I became extremely concerned.  He was looking for Meg and sounded a little disoriented.  All that I could get out of him was that there had been an emergency, he was in the hospital and that he thought that he would be alright.  I tried to ask him what happened, but soon realized that he just wanted to talk to Meg.  I was worried about him, but decided that the best thing that I could do was hang up and get ahold of her.  I called her, texted her and ended up paging her just to make sure that she knew that it was important.  

I heard back from Meg within ten minutes.  Nick's plane had had to make an emergency landing in Indianapolis due to decompression in the cockpit.  Nick was able to get his oxygen mask on in time, but the older pilot passed out before he did.  Nick took the plane off of autopilot and started to descend.  The pilot woke up and wanted to ascend, but Nick wouldn't let him.  They needed to land before either one of them became extremely ill.  Thankfully, the airport was close.  The runway was already lined with with firetrucks and EMS as they neared it.  They landed safely and Nick was immediately taken to the hospital in an ambulance.  It all sounded incredibly scary.

Meg was on her way to Goshen when Nick called.  Nancy and Kyle said that they could pick her up at Bethany so that they could all ride to Indy together.  Grandma and I got Meg's car for her so that she didn't have to worry about that.  The trio arrived just after 6 and were very happy to report that Nick was feeling a lot better.  The doctor had him on oxygen and planned to keep him overnight for observation.  I talked to Nick briefly and was glad to hear that he was feeling a lot better.  I couldn't even imagine how intense the situation was for him.  Nick told us that he had heard a voice say, "Put your mask on."  I don't know if that was his training kicking in or the voice of God.  Either way, I'm just happy that he survived a near tragedy.