ROBERT PRICE: Providence occasionally shows a flair for drama
| Saturday, Jan 14 2012 10:00 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Jan 14 2012 10:00 PM
The tragic Jan. 6 hot-air balloon accident in New Zealand that killed 11 people caught my eye for reasons that go beyond the normal but unflattering human attraction to awful spectacles. Hot-air balloon accidents, rare as they are, stand out for me amid the daily onslaught of dreadful headlines because I've been there. My wife and I lived through an experience that, but for a millisecond of time, another 20 feet of altitude and the grace of God, may well have ended as badly as the catastrophe in Wellington.
I'm drawn to gut-wretching accounts of that type because it helps me remember that life hangs on a thin strand and the people who inhabit each new morning of our finite time here are irreplaceable gifts. I know that sounds corny. I don't care.
It was July 1988. Katie and I, newlyweds of three years, had moved to Bakersfield two months before. I had been hired as an assistant editor in the sports department of The Californian. She had landed a job working for radio news legend Mark Howell at KUZZ. Many readers will remember that KUZZ owned a hot-air balloon -- not the white inflatable thing with the red, white and blue Buck Owens guitar logo that station promoters tether to the ground at concerts and grand openings these days, but an aviation-worthy, four person-capacity airship. It provided great visibility for the country-music station, and it was an attractive little perk for station advertisers. Sign an ad contract and enjoy a nice, peaceful flight over this Central Valley metropolis at 500 feet or so, chauffeured by a friendly and experienced hot-air balloon pilot.
One morning, a co-worker of Katie's called to say the advertiser who'd booked that day's flight had canceled at the last minute, but the pilot had already brought the balloon to its appointed departure point, the Kern County Fairgrounds, and was preparing it for take off. Would we enjoy a free ride? We said yes.
It was a bright, cool, windless morning, and although Katie likes to tell people I'm a tad afraid of flying, I was completely at ease. At one point we spotted the pilot's 16-year-old son, who was driving the chase vehicle with the balloon's empty trailer bumping along behind, heading in the direction of the designated landing area.
After about 45 minutes aloft, we started our descent into northwest Bakersfield. The pilot noted that the area was booming with new construction, and we flew over several wooden frames in the middle of assembly. As he angled toward what he said was his favorite landing spot, we all looked down on some construction workers pounding nails into the truss of a half-built house. We shouted hello.
I will never forget the next words I heard: "Dad, look out for the wires!"
We spun around to see the balloon heading straight into power lines. The pilot shouted an expletive and pulled hard on the vent cord, allowing the hot air to rush out and the balloon to begin a rapid descent. But the balloon's canopy clearly wasn't going to make it under the wires. "Jump!" the pilot yelled.
Jump?
Katie's survival instincts are apparently impeccable; she hurdled the 3-1/2-foot-tall wicker basket with the grace of a trained athlete and landed on her hands and knees 15 feet below. The synapses of my brain were firing considerably slower, but it now dawned on me I should do the same. I threw my arms back for momentum and my left knee into the air; but in mid-jump I felt a searing pain along the back of my leg, and I bellowed from a place deep in my chest I'd never heard from before. How utterly devoid of awareness was I? I remember actually thinking I had torn my hamstring to shreds from the sudden torque of the jump. In fact, the balloon had collapsed sufficiently to touch a second wire, creating a complete circuit, and I had been shocked with, as I was later told, 26,000 volts and 500 amps. That would have been enough to blow my body into little pieces had I gotten the full measure of voltage. I can only surmise that I was saved by rubber-soled shoes on a wicker basket and a connection that lasted literally an instant. But I really don't know.
I landed 10 or 12 feet below, dusted myself off, and ran to get clear of the balloon, which was now on fire.
County fire trucks arrived within minutes, followed by a PG&E crew and a news van from a local TV station. The pilot, who I only then realized had also escaped, angrily told the cameraman to leave, that there was nothing to see. In a decision that would have made Joseph Pulitzer proud, the cameraman climbed back into his van and did exactly as he was told.
Mel Owens, the general manager of KUZZ, insisted we get EKGs. We both checked out all right, although I had an exit burn on my right calf. Five years later, I developed some major varicose veins there, which were eventually corrected with surgery. My calf had been cooked like a hot dog in a microwave, but today I have wonderfully attractive, hairy legs.
We didn't sue anybody. And KUZZ never replaced its hot-air balloon.
The people whose hot-air balloon crashes you read about in the newspaper are never this lucky. That's why those stories catch my eye: They remind me I'm living on the residuals of a gift. My life is a gift. My wife is a gift. And I am determined to remember that -- and hold on tight.
Everyone gets a second chance like mine eventually. Consider the gift of the more common near-miss: the driver who slams on his brakes just before he runs the red light right into your passenger-side door; the bad tire that doesn't blow on the mountain road's cliff-taunting curve; the impatient leadfoot headed in your direction who thinks better of a high-risk bolt around a slow-moving RV.
Providence doesn't always make as showy an appearance as it did for Katie and me that memorable morning. Sometimes it simply drops its gift quietly at your feet and leaves, unacknowledged.
Email Editorial Page Editor Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com.
