Helicopter crash survivor counts his stars
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, January 13, 2005
Navy Airman Jacob Kirk says he is blessed to be here and lucky to be alive.
Kirk, a photographer’s mate on the USS Abraham Lincoln, was on a SH-60 Seahawk helicopter that crashed Monday while ferrying supplies for the tsunami disaster relief effort in Indonesia.
“I’m a very lucky man today,” Kirk said in an e-mail from the Lincoln. “It was a miracle from God that nobody was seriously injured.”
Kirk recalled what happened just before the aircraft fell to earth and landed on its side in a rice paddy near the Banda Aceh airfield. The sailor was aboard the Seahawk to take photographs of the aid mission for the Navy.
“All of a sudden out of nowhere we started spinning and spinning, faster and faster, and we were still so high in the air. I thought I was for sure done,” Kirk said.
There was no warning of the impending crash, and the crew was silent before the helicopter hit. Kirk said he saw one crewman’s face tense up before he grabbed on for dear life.
“And a split second later, half of my head is in rice patty tsunami water … and half of it was out,” Kirk said.
Not knowing if the helicopter would explode, he climbed out one of the windows. The first one out, Kirk collapsed after running about 10 yards. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Australians running toward him with stretchers.
“They handled the situation brilliantly. First thing one of them said to me while putting my neck in a splint was, ‘Damn you, mate. I was just about to have my morning cup of tea.’ “
Kirk and his fellow sailors were flown back to the Lincoln, and later flown to the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship, for X-rays.
Navy officials said two of the 10 people on the helicopter were injured, one with a dislocated hip and another with a broken ankle. Kirk said he hurt his back and got a black eye and some scratches in the crash, but nothing serious.
The cause of the crash is still unknown.
Kirk, 21, has been aboard the Lincoln since September 2003. He was named the Navy’s Pacific Fleet photographer of the year just after the carrier was deployed in October for a four-month western Pacific cruise. He was later named the ship’s “bluejacket of the year,” the award given to the carrier’s most outstanding lower-level enlisted sailor.
John Kirk, the sailor’s father, said in an e-mail that the Kirk family feels fortunate their son wasn’t badly injured. The photographer’s family lives near Columbia, Md.
“This kind of thing makes you appreciate and sympathize with the families that have given so much. Our prayers are with them,” John Kirk wrote.
Jacob Kirk said there was another reason to smile when he got back to the Lincoln.
The ship’s skipper, Capt. Kendall Card, was there to greet the Seahawk sailors when they returned. Kirk was still dressed in pajamas and smiley face slippers from his trip to the hospital on the Bonhomme Richard.
