Page Utilities
Jackie Nink Pflug, with Peter J. Kisilos, Hazelden Publishing (page 8 of 11) Page 8 of 11
* * *
Nurses and other aides in the hospital were very kind to me. They did everything they could to make me feel comfortable. Toward the end of my five-day stay in Malta, I was able to start eating some solid foods.
One time, they asked what I wanted to eat. Since I felt like I’d missed out on Thanksgiving Dinner, I asked for some turkey and dressing.
“We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving,” the nurse said in broken English. “Can you think of anything else you’d like?”
Hmm, I thought, what’s like turkey and dressing?
“Do you have any chicken and mashed potatoes?”
Her eyes lit up. “Yes! We can get you that.”
For lunch that day, the nurse brought in a plate of chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I was so excited. I smiled and laughed. “Thank you,” I said.
“This is really great!”
Seeing how much I appreciated the meal, that it brought a smile to my face, the nurses brought me chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner. They started serving me chicken and mashed potatoes around the clock — at every meal except breakfast. They’d come in and say, in broken English, “We got you chicken and mashed potatoes!” And their faces would just light up.
“Honey, you’ve got to say something,” Scott said.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I ate other foods too. “I’ll just eat chicken and mashed potatoes,” I said.
This went on for about three days.
* * *
Before leaving the hospital in Malta and being transferred to a U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, I had to tell officials my story of what happened on the plane. I didn’t know why they needed it — they had reports from Patrick Baker and other passengers, but the Maltese police wouldn’t release me until they had mine as well. They wrote down everything I said.
Shortly after, they wheeled me out of the hospital. It was great to see the pretty blue sky again. Malta looked like a beautiful country. I wished that I’d been able to enjoy it under different circumstances. Scott and the U.S. ambassador to Malta, Gary Matthews, looked on as medical attendants hoisted me into the plane.
On the flight to Germany, Scott and I were the sole passengers on a USAF C-9 “Nightingale” transport plane, normally used to evacuate wartime casualties. I lay flat on a bed dangling from the ceiling in the cargo bay. I was so tired from the hijacking and the surgery that I slept much of the flight.
At one point, the copilot came back to visit with me. She looked so young, and I asked her when she started flying.
“I’ve been doing it a long time, ever since I was a little girl,” she said. “My father flew. Would you like to come up to the front?”
She led me to the cockpit and let me sit down in her seat and look out. When I started feeling weak, she helped me get back to my bed in the back.
* * *
We were en route to the second General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, but a snowstorm forced the pilot to divert us to Rhein-Main Air Force Base in Frankfurt and the ninety-seventh General Hospital (the one that Captain Tesstrake and the TWA hostages flew into exactly five months earlier), where we stayed overnight.
The next morning, we continued on to Landstuhl, where I was admitted on the neurosurgery service.
The U.S. military took good care of us in Germany. They put Scott up in a barracks-style hotel on the base, near the hospital. After living in constant worry for nearly a week, and not sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time, Scott could finally slow down enough to feel. The doctors had assured us that I was going to be okay. Scott and I had talked long enough so that he felt happy and confident that I wasn’t going to be a vegetable.
He sat on a chair in his room, closed his eyes, and cried. After crying, Scott fell fast asleep. His body had released all the tension and worry.
The next morning when he came to the hospital, I could see that something in his eyes had changed. “What is it honey? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” he said. “I had a good cry last night, that’s all.”
I was still numb. I hadn’t cried about what happened to me yet. Obviously, there was another side to the story. I’d barely survived a horrible tragedy and was in a state of mental and emotional shock. During the hijacking, I stuffed down my emotions to cope with the trauma. I tried to close my eyes and ears to the horror of what was happening. It was too awful to watch.
In Germany, some of the nurses wondered why I was in such a good mood, why I was laughing so much. I was just plain excited to be alive.
I shared a room with a woman named Susan Joyce, and it turned out she was originally from Minnesota, where Scott was from. She and her husband, Pat, were living in London, England, where he served in the air force.
Susan was in the hospital for surgery to remove cancerous growths in her brain. She’d already had several operations, but the tumors kept reappearing in different places. She was partially deaf from the surgeries and, after the next operation, doctors feared she’d also be blind.
Hearing Susan’s story made me realize I had nothing to complain about. I remember thinking, Boy, and I think I have it bad. At least I’m not losing my hearing.
Besides, I was still overjoyed just to be alive. Early on, I didn’t think much about the long-term effects of my injuries. Mostly, I was just glad to be alive. I had expected each hour on the plane to be my last. Now, here I was in a German hospital, with Scott and doctors all around me. I felt so grateful. My prayers were answered. Who wouldn’t be happy about that?
Scott and I joked around in the hospital. I asked him to take some pictures of my bald head. I wanted to look good for my homecoming, but I was bald and my face looked bruised and raggedy. Scott went out and bought me a wig.
He came back and said, “This looks just like your hair.”
I looked at the wig in his hands and blinked twice. Who were you married to before? was my thought. The wig was this wild hair that hung down almost to my waist! Before the hijacking, my hair was cut short — just barely over my ears.
“Scott, I can’t wear this!” I said. We both broke out laughing. He took the wig back.
Excerpted from Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Jackie Nink Pflug, with Peter J. Kisilos, published by Hazelden Publishing, www.hazelden.org. Copyright © 1996 by Hazelden Foundation. Used with permision. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission from the publisher. To learn more about the author, go to: www.jackiepflug.com.
See All TBI Topics