Chambers Eileen - Rescued

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Verses marked GNT are taken from the Good News Translation Second Edition 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

Cover photo and interior rescue photos 2012 Doug Strosnider, Nampa Fire Department

Photo, pages 24, 249, and backcover 2013 Jan Ibarra

Photo, page 246 and color insert page 8 2013 Carole Herzog

Interior crew photos 2013 Delinda Castellon, Lori L. Collins, Jeremy Elliot, Brian Fox, Dave Guzzetti, Scott Prow, and Doug Strosnider

RESCUED

Copyright 2013 by Brian Brown

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Brian, 1964-

Rescued / Brian Brown with Eileen Chambers.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7369-5560-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5561-4 (eBook)

1. Airplane crash survivalIdahoWar Eagle Mountain Region (Owyhee County) 2. Search and rescue operationsIdahoWar Eagle Mountain Region (Owyhee County) 3. Brown, Brian, 1964Travel. I. Chambers, Eileen, 1957- II. Title.

TL553.525.I2B76 2013

363.12'4092dc23

2013015776

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Contents

To all of my brothers and sisters in the rescue and medical professions, along with the many volunteers who spent the selfless hours to rescue my family and me off the snowy face of the Owyhee Mountains.

For my immediate and extended family members who nursed us back to health in the months after the crash and, of course, God, who was there every step of the way.

Brian Brown

J UNE 10, 2012

Early morning. New York City.

H E WAS NO LIAR . Everything the TODAY producer said to us in California was proving to be true.

The interview will feel like you are sitting in your own living room, Jim had promised, like having coffee with some friends. No one on the set will try to trip you up or ask you anything that you have not already been asked by me.

Still, sitting here on the set at Rockefeller Plaza with elephantlike cameras whipping around while the curious summer tourists pressed their faces to the window, staring at us and looking for themselves on camera as we would have if we had been in their shoes, I battled to keep my emotions under some semblance of control.

Tough. Almost three weeks ago to the day, Jayann, Heather, and I had smashed into the side of a mountain but were miraculously still alive, and despite how nice these folks at TODAY were being to us, this was not our living room. Jayann, Heather, Tabitha, and I were not having coffee and watching the news with friends.

No. This time, we were the news.

I am going to do your interview, Ann Curry, one of the well-known anchors on TODAY , said, introducing herself with genuine warmth. I am glad that you are still with us.

So were we. But here and now? I wondered. Had I done the right thing by agreeing to this interview on national television?

Since the day rescuers pulled us off the side of a remote mountain in Idaho, the onslaught and hounding of the press had been relentless. Here and now, I wanted the story to be told without the inaccuraciesto tell what it had really been like. A chance to thank those who had come to our rescue. I was not a careless pilot, but what happened on Memorial Day weekend was nothing short of an extreme rollercoaster ride, one you didnt want to be on but into which you were already buckled.

No turning back now. Those elephant-eyed cameras were switching to our faces. I looked over to Jayann, my wife and sweetheart of 28-plus years, my beautiful redhead who always lights up a room with the kind of confident enthusiasm that makes guys like me, the quiet, reserved, processing-at-a-distance fellow, fall in love with her in high school.

I ached. Neither anyone on this set nor those watching from home would ever know that Jayann was doing this interview with several broken ribs, stitches in her head, and a memory that was just now returning. Thank God. She was almost able now to make it down a hallway without zigzagging. But it was slow going.

Jayann looked my way. Gave me her smile. I choked up inside. I had almost killed her that day.

Sitting next to their mom were Heather and Tabitha, as different as two daughters could be. So much had changed for the good between all of us since the crash, but I had no doubt we would be healing from the scars for a while, especially those that made the trauma come alive inside of us again.

Heather, my youngest, in her mid-twenties, still bruised and sore, was much like her mom. My strong-willed child was what I used to call her, the one with the authentic heart of emotion that drew children to her like honey. There were few things that Heather feared. Flying was at the top of the list, especially in an aircraft as small as our Cessna. It simply scared her.

Heather was cocooned in the backseat when we smacked hard into the mountain. Seeing Jayann and me knocked out, Heather feared for several horrible seconds that she was the only one who had survived.

Tabitha, my eldest, married to an active duty serviceman and living in Mountain Home, Idaho, was a mirror image of me, someone always content to be in the shadows. Artistic. Cautious. She was my better self in a lot of ways, especially with people. Tabitha seemed able to find God and fresh starts with others much easier than her old man. Tabitha would never say the words, knowing how they would hurt me. But three weeks ago I had almost made her the sole surviving member of our family.

How did I end up hereminutes away from going on national television?

I was a professional firefighter, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get man who had spent his entire 24-year career as a first responder, the last decade or so as a captain in one department and a deputy chief in another. Rolling on thousands of emergencies each year, I have always been the guy responding to 911 calls, racing to help someone in crisis.

This time, on that mountain, the roles had been reversed. I was the one in the middle of a life-or-death emergency, desperately needing someone to come to our aid.

Humbling. Like your whole life comes screeching to a stop sign. You try to make sense of it. Or stuff the memories away, hoping that they find someone else to haunt. Besides, life goes on. You cant change the past. What is the good in dwelling on it, right?

Well, sometimes, maybe we should.

The Big Apple. We were certainly the wide-eyed tourists here. The Empire State Building. Trump Towers. Central Park. Despite all the fun we were having, deep down I knew that Jayann, Heather, and Tabitha had made this trip because they knew how important it was to me. TODAY would give me a chance to get the story off my chest, to tell it right, without the inaccuracies of previous news accounts. So my girls had boarded planes, crossed the United States, and held their fear in check because this was part of my healing process. And simply because they loved me.