19-02-2025
First responders coping with emotions after deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport
ARLINGTON, Va. () — First responders, both past and present, are coping with heavy emotions from the grueling recovery efforts after the deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport (DCA) late last month.
Nearing three weeks since an American Airlines flight collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, those incredibly difficult recovery efforts to bring the bodies of all 67 victims to shore have come to an end, but the healing process is only just beginning.
'There's physical scars and, there's emotional scars that people have as a result of this tragedy,' said David Hoagland, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association.
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For him, and hundreds of other first responders who showed up to help in the hours that followed the crash it was unlike any call they'd ever responded to.
'This was obviously a very catastrophic event. Our members worked for a very long time on the scene under extremely hazardous conditions. There was jet fuel throughout the water. There was debris from the airplane. Everybody drove for several hours in icy conditions,' Hoagland DC Fire and EMS Department Foundation said it'll be there to help first responders heal and provide ongoing mental health support.
'The struggles that they have after an event like this can happen today, they can happen six months from now, they can happen six years from now,' said Amy Mauro, the foundation's executive director.
Some former first responders said those images and those feelings don't ever really go away.
Don Usher was the pilot of U.S. Park Police helicopter Eagle 1 rescuing people from the Potomac River after Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge back on a snowy, icy day in 1982. He recalls the entire rescue operation that day in great detail.
'These aircraft accidents are always just a series of little events that, but for one thing, might have changed the entire outcome,' Usher said.
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For him, the recent headlines have reopened old wounds, remembering both the remarkable rescues and the lives lost 43 years ago.
'For me, it was just shock and then absolute sorrow, because here we were, going through another process in the Potomac River, the loss of innocent life in an airplane crash that probably didn't have to happen, just like Air Florida didn't really have to happen,' he said.
The DC Fire and EMS Foundation is always accepting donations, and proceeds from the upcoming Legacy on Ice figure skating event at Capital One Arena will benefit first responders impacted by the crash.
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