August 9, 1935-Here’s The Story Of Ben, Whose Plane Crashed The Day After He Was Married
The Washington Daily News—Friday—August 9,—1935
Here’s The Story Of Ben, Whose Plane Crashed The Day After He Was Married
By Ernie Pyle
ANDOVER, N. J. — Hidden away on a little farm up here among the northern New Jersey lakes and hills is a young man who knows how it feels to die.
His name is T. Benson Hoy, you call him Ben, and here is the story:
Two years ago, he was one of the boys in blue uniform with gold wings on their breasts, who pilot the great passenger airliners.
He was a university graduate, a former Navy officer, a veteran of the airlines all over North and South America, but still in his 20s and tall and lean and handsome, with only airline routine and good pay and the fun of living ahead of him.
Then, two years ago, he married a lovely girl. He did not see her again, except through dazed and wondering eyes, for six months, altho she was by his bedside 16 hours a day. Because he crashed the day after the wedding. And since that day he has:
1. Spent six months of unconsciousness
2. Gone through the experience of dying
3. Lost his right leg.
4. Become the only man in medical history to live through two deadly infections in his bloodstream at the same time.
5. Achieved the questionable honor of being the only person, alive or dead, ever known to have three types of deadly infection at the same time.
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And the cause of it all? A tiny little lock, a new gadget in an aileron that somebody forgot to unlock. An innocent little stick of wood that changed a man’s whole life.
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If you have known him a long time, and well enough, he will tell you about dying.
It was when they injected the last powerful serum, the one that would kill or cure, but probably kill. He was conscious, then, and shouted for them to take the needle out, that he was dying. His wife knew he was dying, too, for she was there, and could tell by his face.
And while he was dying, he got up and started walking up a great flight of stone steps, and when he finally got to the top, there was a grassy ledge, and then a gray stone wall, 30 feet high, running as far in each direction as he could see. And in the wall, just ahead of him, were two great stone gates, extending clear to the top of the wall.
They were a little bit ajar, and he could see himself standing there, trying to see what was on the other side, and waiting for them to open and let him thru. He says he didn’t mind going. But they never opened any further, and he never went through.
And he also says it’s a myth about people “putting up a valiant fight for life,” and so on. At least in his case. He didn’t care whether he lived or died, he was so weary and sick and confused. He didn’t mind dying at all. He didn’t fight against it.
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And so he lived. And for a year and a half now he has been out of danger. But such a long and exhausting walk with death, and such a blank in the even flow of time, upsets, and bewilders —you come back to earth mentally walking on sand, and thoughts are weird and hard to hold.
So, for a year and a half now he has been resting and rebuilding and adjusting himself to what he finds. And now he is ready again to start living, and to begin the very big task of hacking out of the jumble of existence a new kind of life for himself.
He is neither bitter nor afraid. And he has the girl he married the day before it all happened, still with him, of course.
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This is amazing!