BUFFALO, N.Y. — In some ways, Karen Wielinski is unique among the victims of the crash of Continental Flight 3407.
Not only did she lose a loved one, her husband Doug, but she also lost her home and most of her possessions when the plane crashed into the couple’s house on Long Street in Clarence Center on February 12, 2009.
Among the lawsuits filed against the operator of the doomed plane by the survivors of those killed in the disaster, hers was the only one which wasn’t settled out of court and which actually went to trial.
Although it was eventually settled like all the others, it was not until after she endured three grueling days of testimony, reliving the nightmare of that evening when she and her daughter Jill were somehow able to escape from the ruins of their home as it started to burn, while her husband was not.
Wielinski made it to safety by climbing through a small hole in the debris, which surrounded and threatened to crush her.
During her testimony at the trial in October 2014, more than 5-1/2 years after the crash, she told jurors she still suffered from “anxiety, panic attacks, fear of confined spaces, trouble sleeping, loneliness, and sadness over the loss of her husband.”
She’ll Always Miss Him
“There's still mornings when I’ll wake up and it will take me a second to realize he's not next to me in the bed…and it's been ten years now,” she told WGRZ-TV, during a recent interview.
“I’m still not good in confined spaces…I mean it's probably not as bad as it used to be but it's still there," she said.
There was a portion of her testimony during the trial in which it appeared that those in the courtroom were hanging on her every word, when she stated, “It all goes back to that night…right back…and you just can't escape it. And when I go back to that night, I'm back in that hole again...I am back on Long Street, and trying to escape."
A decade later, when asked if she has truly escaped from that dreadful experience, she replied, “For the most part yes. But it just depends. There's ups and downs and you can feel good one day…and then something will happen...and you're right back there.”
There are many ways for one to attempt to escape from tragedy, including literature.
Wielinski has published a book titled “One On The Ground” which chronicles her experiences of the crash, the events which followed, her struggle to move forward, and of course her life with her husband of nearly 30 years.
When asked if writing the book was helpful in her recovery, Wielinski replied, “Definitely. It was very cathartic.”
One On The Ground
“It started off as a collection of essays,” Wielinski recalled about her book. “I wrote about every month in that first year and then I could put some of my others stories in between those chapters. I wrote about my connection with the other 3407 families, about the memorial regarding the site on Long Street (of her former home) and then of course the trial, and just kind of wrapped it up with some things that happened. And then it ended up being over 300 pages, and there's a lot in there."
Among many things, the book chronicles the recovery of items from the home which was a smoldering mass for days following the crash.
"It's unbelievable how much was salvaged from that site…there was a whole airplane warehouse that my daughter Kim and I had to go to that was lined with boxes, and we had to go through every single thing in those boxes and we had to say whether they were ours," she recalled.
"So we ended up with a lot more than what I thought we'd end up with. To this day, I have two storage units filled with items…originally I think I had five, and it took me five years to look at those because it’s just emotional. Even little slips of paper...I mean it was unbelievable the amount of paper that was salvaged because if you had seen the inferno I don’t know how some of that stuff survived."
Picking Up the Pieces
Wielinski recalls asking one of the persons charged with salvaging and organizing the items why they would preserve small scraps of paper and such, and being told that it was because “when we do this, we realize that even a small item might hold memories and be special to someone.”
Now comfortably settled in a home, in a town she purposely chose because she and Doug didn’t have much of a connection to it, (she figured the fewer memories of places they had been together, the better) there is, in one room, a small wooden table which was once in the family room of their home on Long Street and which somehow survived the flames.
It is steps away from where a copy of her book rests on a mantle.
The title was chosen by her, in part, to pay homage to Doug.
“Oh definitely because that day after the crash Jill and I were in a hotel suite and we turned on the television, and there was the news crawl (at the bottom of the screen) saying 49 people were killed on the flight and then it would say- 'and one on the ground'. And I know it wasn't intentional, but it just always seemed to me like Doug was an afterthought...the one on the ground.”
One Last Laugh Together
It also took Wielinski five years to return to the site of her former home, which had become the site of a memorial and an annual pilgrimage made by many of the 3407 families on the anniversary of the crash.
For several years, it was simply too devastating.
“I didn’t know how I would react, but I had this feeling – and I know it’s crazy- but I thought, what if Doug’s spirit is there and won’t be released until I actually go there at the exact time of the crash? So that was one of the things that made me do it, and by that time I had made some friendships with the 3407 family members.”
But what she thought would be a somber and quite moment was not, when she rounded the corner of Long Street with the others, to a flood of lights from nearby TV news crews.
“It was not what I expected,” she recalled.
She remembers looking for the candle in a bag which signified Doug among those set out to represent each of the crash victims, and not being able to find it.
“Somebody told me that his was up on a mound near a tree which symbolized where the house stood. I was hoping that when they read the names I would sense him…but instead, I told my friend Sue that I wanted to leave and take the route that Jill and I took when we left that night.”
But as they tried to do so, they encountered some deep snow, and began slipping and falling as they attempted to wade through it.
“I started to just laugh,” she recalled “I was thinking, how disrespectful for me to be laughing…but then I thought…I feel him with me now.” Finishing her thought with a laugh, she continued: “Because all I could think was that he was right there, saying to me, ‘do you believe this? Do you believe this is how I died?”
A New Chapter
There is an old saying among those with loved ones lost.
You never get over it.
You just get on with it.
“I think that's a good way to put it," said Wielinski. “I am thankful that I got 30 years with Doug and I think I'm fortunate that I had that."
But there are memories of him all around her home, and pictures of the grandchildren she now has who came along later.
Too late, for Doug to have ever met.
"I think they know about him, but I don’t think they ask too many questions," she said.
But someday when they are older they probably will.
And when do, they’ll be able to read about their grandfather.
Doug Wielinski.
The one on the ground.
"I love when people say to me that they didn’t know Doug, but that they feel like they do through my words,” said Wielinski. “And that makes me feel good.”
Click on the video player to watch our story from reporter Dave McKinley and Photojournalist Dooley O’Rourke.