Luckily, Larons are forgiving aircraft, and the stall was not fully catastrophic.
Blanca realized that she was losing altitude too quickly, and throttled up again, but it was almost too late. Minus nearly a quarter of its wing area, the Laron had insufficient lift and was descending at thirty feet a second, just coming out of the stall. By the time she hit the ground, the prop had spooled up and her rate of descent was slower, but the impact was still well beyond the rated stress that the landing gear was designed to absorb. To make matters worse, unknown to Blanca, the Laron’s right tire had been punctured by a bullet.
The Laron hit the grass and bounced once. Blanca chopped the throttle completely. On the second bounce, the right side of the landing gear collapsed.
The right wing tip edged into the ground, and the Star Streak went into a ground loop. The fuselage tore into the sod, sending chunks of dirt up through the skin of the plane. The right wing tip was torn off completely. Blanca instinctively pulled her knees up. The plane was still going fifteen miles an hour when it flipped over. After sliding upside down in a semicircle, the Laron finally came to a stop.
When the others arrived, they thought that Blanca was dead. The sight of her hanging upside down in the cockpit, unconscious and bathed in blood, was almost too much for Margie. Mary had the presence of mind to pick up her medic bag before she started to run toward the plane. Lon and Todd supported Blanca’s weight while Mary snipped through the harness material with her black-handled EMT shears. Having seen gasoline pouring out of a puncture in the gas tank, there was no hesitation. They quickly carried her in a “fireman’s carry” sixty yards across the meadow toward the TAC-CP. Mary checked her pulse at her carotid artery and examined her pupils. Then she deftly cut the ACU material back from each of the wounds on her legs. Mary could see that they were roughly an inch deep. To her surprise, the bleeding was slow. Large clots had formed at both the entrance and exit sides. “Looks like the major arteries are intact,” Mary reported. Mary wrapped four pressure dressings on her legs, one each over the entrance and exit sides of the wounds.
Mary decided that it would be unwise and unnecessary to move her any further, at least for the present. She sent Margie for her surgical kit and some water. After another few minutes, Blanca regained consciousness. She looked up at Mary and asked, “Que, que…?”
Mary held her fingers to her lips and smiled at Blanca. “You did good, Blanca, muy bueno. Now rest.”
Blanca lowered her head and smiled. She turned her head to see the crumpled tan Laron. She laughed and said, “Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay. I wasn’t thinking straight. I should have recka-nized that I was going to stall. I theenk my bird is verry broken, no?”
Mary quickly replied, “Yes, but the Lord brought you back to us. You’re going to be just fine. God is the great physician. Be still and rest.”
Mary noted that the bleeding had nearly stopped, and asked Todd and Lon to fabricate a stretcher. They nodded to each other and jogged off. They returned ten minutes later. They were carrying a stretcher that they had improvised from two ponchos lashed onto a pair of pine saplings.Very gently, they lifted Blanca up and placed her on the stretcher. She was slowly carried to the shade of the trees near the TAC-CP.
Mary checked Blanca’s blood pressure, declaring it “just a hair low.” Her pulse was rapid at 125. She gave her some cayenne pepper powder mixed in water to slow the bleeding. Blanca said that the cayenne tasted terrible, but she drank it down. The bleeding nearly stopped. She had Margie help her remove Blanca’s blood-sodden ACU pants. She prepped Blanca’s arm and started a colloid I.V. drip. The hanger for the I.V. bottle was nailed to a close-by ponderosa pine tree. Mary explained that because she didn’t know how much blood Blanca had lost, it was important to “expand” her blood. Blanca was asleep by the time the I.V. was flowing. Mary scrubbed her hands with a disposable Betadine-soaked double-sided square brush. Then she donned a pair of gloves and swabbed the wounds with Betadine. Blanca was lifted by Todd and Lon and a new poncho was spread on the ground beneath her.
Mary regularly checked respiration, pulse, and pupils. After doing some probing, she decided to leave the wounds open for drainage. She commented, “They clotted so well by themselves, the suturing isn’t necessary unless she has to move her legs. We’ll watch her real closely for any new bleeding, and cauterize if necessary. For now, I’ll just do some light packing with saline-soaked bandages on the exit sides. It is best to provide drainage for several days. Based on my experience with Rose’s gunshot wound, I’d say it’ll be at least three or four days before we’ll stitch her up. ”
Blanca was fully conscious as Mary bandaged her. A mosquito bar was set up to keep flies away from the wounds. Mary stayed by her side for three more hours, regularly reaching under the mosquito netting to check her pulse, respiration, and blood pressure. After three full units of the I.V. fluid were drained, the Heparin lock was disconnected. Mary started a chart on Blanca’s vital signs in her notebook, and then went to her tent to rest. Margie took up the vigil.
She was told to check her “vitals” and for new bleeding every fifteen minutes, to chart them, and to call Mary if Blanca awakened or if there was any additional bleeding.
The late afternoon was devoted to recovering useful items from the wrecked Laron. The most important item was the M60. Luckily, aside from a badly scratched flash hider and a bent front sight, it was undamaged. It was unbolted from the framework and carried back to the TAC-CP. Blanca’s Mini-14 GB was safely secured by Velcro strap, so it too escaped any damage beyond some scratches to the black plastic pistol grip.
The video camera on the plane was still functional. The camera had been left running from the time Blanca started her first pass. As they discovered when they played back the tape three days later, it recorded the strafing runs on Blanca’s four previous sorties, as well as the last one. The latest portion of the tape differed from the scenes of the earlier sorties in that it also showed Blanca’s flight back, and the crash itself. It even included an inverted view of Mary, Todd, and Lon running up to the crashed plane. They watched the tape several times, using the camera’s small viewfinder monitor. When she saw it, Mary said, “It’s too bad that the TV show ‘Real Life Video’ is no longer in production. They’d certainly buy a tape like this!”
The small ICOMVHF radio had its antenna and headset connectors ripped off, but looked basically intact. Surprisingly, a static rush could be heard when Todd disconnected the plugs and turned the unit on and the squelch knob down. “Built to take a licking!” Todd said with a laugh. Everything of value was removed from the wreckage—even the fired brass and links, and the remaining fuel in the tank.
After unbolting the remains of the right wing, and the largely intact left wing, Todd and Lon were able to flip the plane upright by themselves. Both were amazed just how light the Laron was. Next, with help from Jeff Trasel, they unbolted the shredded tail and carried it into the tree line to the south. The two wings quickly followed. Moving the fuselage was easier than Todd had anticipated. Lon held the right side up by the mangled stub of the landing gear and Todd pushed from behind. They wheeled it ten yards into the trees. A half hour later, two camouflage nets were in place over the wreckage. Then they went to clean the M60 and swap out the barrel with the bent front sight. Using the intact barrel for reference, Lon used a brass hammer and a pair of channel locks to straighten the front sight. Then, it too was methodically cleaned.