How do you cope with surviving a plane crash in which 112 people perished? Sports broadcaster Jerry Schemmel was onboard United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989 and has spent the time since searching for those answers.
It wasn't a sudden crash - after the initial explosion there were around 40 minutes for passengers to get their affairs in order before crash-landing at an airport in Sioux City in Iowa. Some prayed, some wrote letters, others planned what they would do in the event they survived.
Jerry, who has worked as a play-by-play announer with the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Rockies of Major League Baseball, told OTB Sports' Shane Hannon in a recent interview that he spent that time concocting what he calls his 'gameplan.'
"We had a lot of time before we hit. In most of these major airline disasters something happens and immediately there's chaos and there's really no time to think it through.
"We had time to do that, we had time to get a gameplan. I just remember thinking 'If I'm intact and I'm alive I'm going to help people, I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to flee the plane and try to save myself first.'
"I think that paid off for me, I know that it did. My first thought when we came to a halt finally was 'Don't get out of the plane, let's help other people.' Because there were a lot of people around me that were in rough shape."
One of those people was Sabrina Michaelson, an 11-month-old baby whose cries Jerry heard.
"We finally came to a halt and I'm hanging upside down in my chair. I unbuckled my seatbelt and got down to the ceiling, because we were upside down, and started moving to the back of the plane with some other people.
"The smoke was coming from front to back, we really had no choice but to go back. Finally I saw sunlight coming through this opening in front of me and I saw people going out of that thing.
"I thought 'That's my way to get out, I'll stay in as long as I can and help and then I'll get out there.' I was in the cabin probably two or three minutes initially.
"Everybody around me in that crash perished."
Sports broadcaster Jerry Schemmel survived the crash-landing of United Flight 232 31 years ago today.
112 people died. He spoke with @ShaneHannon01 for an exclusive OTB Sports Radio interview.
7pm this evening on our new app 📱 pic.twitter.com/ILtNc65cxO— Off The Ball (@offtheball) July 19, 2020
"I stepped outside into the sunlight into a corn field and I heard a baby crying. I can tell you what I didn't do - I didn't think it through, I didn't weigh the risk, I didn't think 'If I go back in this plane might explode or I might not find my way back out'.
"I certainly didn't think I'm going to go back in and find this baby and be some hero. I remember turning around, looking at the opening I'd come out of and seeing smoke coming out of it, and I just went back in.
"It wasn't very far, probably ten or 15 feet back inside the wreckage."
Survivors' guilt is a very real phenomenon - whether you live through a road accident, a war, or an airline crash, it can hit people in different ways. Jerry says it impacted him in a very significant way.
"It hit me hard and I never saw it coming, I really didn't. I was warned it might [happen] but I kind of brushed that off.
"I looked in the mirror and thought I should see the luckiest person in the world. I'm in the middle of a circle of people that died in the crash.
"The guy on my left died, his wife to his left died, the little boy in front of me, the guy across the aisle, the woman behind me - everybody around me in that crash perished.
"I came out without any serious injuries so I'm thinking, 'I'm the luckiest guy there is.' That's what I wanted to think, but I just couldn't for some reason.
Just wanted to clear something up. This is the statue at the UA Flight 232 Memorial in Sioux City, IA. But that is not me being depicted. Its a member of the Iowa National Guard team that was part of the rescue effort. He carried out Spencer Bailey. pic.twitter.com/avWQmXOjmx
— Jerry Schemmel (@jschemmel6) June 19, 2019
"It's a chemical imbalance in your brain that gets you to think that way with post-traumatic stress... it hit me. Especially that little boy sitting in front of me.
"He was 18 months old, he had his whole life in front of him, and I'm 29 years old at the time of the crash. We're two and a half feet apart, he dies and I come out without any serious injuries.
"The guilt of that hit me and it wouldn't let go for a long time."
Jerry added that he has come to accept what happened to him on that July day in 1989 - but that outlook change didn't happen overnight.
"I think one of the reasons I'm doing these kinds of things is so I can tell the story, and maybe have some positive influence on somebody. That's the way I look at it.
"It was a long time after the crash, a couple of years, where I asked [myself] the question every day - why did I survive the crash? Why did I survive and this little boy in front of me die? Why did this guy beside me die and [my friend] Jay seven rows behind me die? Why? Why?
"When I finally came to the point where I realised I would never have those answers, it would never make sense, I stopped asking the question so often. That's when I think I got a lot healthier.
"I was like 'Alright, I'm going to just leave this in god's hands and I'm going to let him deal with it. I'm here, I'm happy I survived, I'm going to make the most of it.'"
