An author from Chicago is writing a book about the passengers who survived the crash of Flight 232 in Sioux City. Laurence Gonzales has interviewed over 30 survivors of the crash landing at the Sioux City airport on July 19th in 1989.
Gonzales says he was inspired to write the book after reading the story of Jerry Schemmel, a crash survivor who recused a baby from the wreckage of the plane. “And as I read his story I thought my goodness a 184 people survived this and there’s dozens of them still out there. And some of them were kids at the time of the flight and are now grown up adults and they must have amazing stories to tell,” Gonzales says.
“Just as soon as I started talking to people I found out how amazing those stories really are.” Gonzales has previously written the best seller “Deep Survival” and has a sequel to that book coming out this fall.
“Deep Survival is about why some people survive and others don’t, and how we make mistakes, what goes on in our brain when we’re making mistakes that get us into trouble,” he explains. “The new book in September ‘Surviving Survival’ is about what happens when the surviving event is over. You’ve gone through the traumatic event, you’ve live through it, and now how do you get back to your life.”
Gonzales says.
The Flight 232 book will chronicle how the survivors have dealt with the plane crash and gone on with their lives. Gonzales hopes to finish the book in the next year in time to publish it around the 25th anniversary of the crash in 2014.
By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City