"How Could I Forget?" The Story of a Moving Reunion

The message came by email on a Friday.

“Do you remember me?” wrote the sender.

“Do I remember you?” I wrote back. “I think of you often and fondly, although it has been over 25 years since we last spoke, and 34 years since we first met.”

Our first meeting: 25 January 1990. It was a drizzly evening that fateful Thursday. I was exercising on my ­NordicTrack when the phone rang. It was my brother.

“I heard that a plane crashed on Long Island,” he said. “Are you all OK?”

“We’re fine,” I replied. Resuming my exercise, I turned on the TV.

The news was dreadful: Avianca flight 052, a Boeing 707 from Bogota, Colombia, to New York City, had run out of fuel after a failed landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and had crashed on Long Island’s North Shore.

Soon the phone rang again. Annoyed, I answered. It was the hospital: They had declared an emergency and wanted me to come in.

I’m a child psychiatrist, I thought. What can I do for the crash victims?

Without stopping to shower, I changed into my work clothes and told my family that I’d be back shortly.

At the hospital, I joined 200 other health-care providers. The emergency room had been evacuated; the cafeteria was now a makeshift ER, and elective patients had been sent home to make room for an unknown number of survivors. As a helicopter arrived bearing the first survivors, our anxiety grew.

As each stretcher was wheeled into the ER, it was surrounded by a nurse, a surgeon and a Spanish-speaking translator. The injured were sent for X-rays or straight to the operating room. It went astonishingly smoothly.

As the first child came in, I went to translate and to provide emotional comfort. It was terrible to see the children frightened and in pain.

Hours later I visited the paediatric floor and saw the director of paediatric social work. Feeling overwhelmed by the trauma surrounding us, we decided to do our rounds together for mutual support. We imagined that many people had died in the crash, but no one knew how many. Photos were taken of each survivor, and a number was assigned to each, paired with a description: ‘10-year-old boy,’ ‘three-year-old girl’ and so on.

In the paediatric intensive care unit, we visited an eight-year-old girl with serious injuries. She seemed to be asleep, but as we began to move away, she opened her eyes.

“Puedo hacer una pregunta, por favor?” (“May I ask a question, please?”) she asked.

“Si,” I responded, feeling tears welling up.

“Voy a morir?” (“Am I going to die?”)

“No,” I replied.

With a look of relief that I’ll never forget, she asked, “Puedo dormir?” (“May I go to sleep?”)

“Yes,” I replied. My colleague and I were in tears as we walked on—what a lovely child, so sweet and graceful.

After visiting the surviving children, we met with the family members of the missing passengers. These families were advised by officials to go to the morgue to ask for information about their loved ones—an unbearably painful statement to hear.

Before I knew it, I’d been at the hospital for 12 hours. I returned to the paediatric floor to check on the children again. Some were in surgery; others were asking questions. The eight-year-old girl—whose name was Andrea, I learnt—asked none.

Andrea’s injuries would keep her in the hospital for six weeks. I met with her every day and kept careful notes of our visits. Her mother and brother had perished in the crash; her father had survived, but he told me he felt unable to go on. He feared he might harm himself.

“I can offer you a hospital bed,” I told him. “Remember, you have an eight-year-old daughter who needs you now more than ever.”

We hugged, we cried together, and he agreed to keep on for Andrea’s sake.

Soon after this, he told me, “I need to travel to Colombia to bury my wife and son.”

I nodded.

“Can you watch over my daughter while I’m away?” he asked. I agreed without hesitation.

During his weeks of absence, I visited Andrea three times daily: before work, after work and at midday. An index card with my name and phone numbers sat at her bedside.

As a father of two children, I could only imagine how drastically her world had changed. We developed a deep bond: When she saw me coming, she would call out my name—“Fornari!”

Andrea’s injuries eventually healed, and she and her father returned home to Colombia. Nine years later, they visited New York City, and we had a reunion. She was 17, a young woman. During our meeting, she shared her desire to become a child psychiatrist; she wanted to help and support children the way she felt that I’d helped and supported her.

In the following years, I thought of her often. And each 25 January, I reflected on my experiences with the survivors and their families. The 10th anniversary of the tragedy was commemorated with a memorial service at the crash site and a church service nearby. Survivors thanked their rescuers; families mourned their lost loved ones. In 2010, the 20th anniversary services took place. A generation later, survivors once more thanked their rescuers, and families once again gathered to mourn their lost loved ones.

And now here was Andrea’s email, asking whether I remembered her.

How could I forget?

She wrote that she was now 42, married and the mother of two daughters, ages three and seven. I asked whether we could have a Zoom call, and, after 34 years, we saw each other once again.

Andrea’s face was now that of a mature woman, but I’d recognize it anywhere.

“I can’t believe I’m speaking with you!” she exclaimed, weeping.

“I often think of you and wonder how you’re doing,” I told her. I held up the photos of her, taken in 1990 and 1999, that I keep in my desk drawer. Seeing them, she cried again.

“I think of you often,” she sobbed.

“Why contact me now?” I asked.

“As my daughter turns eight, I imagine what her life might be like without me,” she replied. “I thought of how I fell out of the sky, and how you caught me.”

We spoke for 30 minutes. I was left feeling humbled and grateful for the privilege of having worked with this child, and for hearing from her so many years later.

We often wonder what happens to our patients, and whether we’ve made a difference in their lives.

With Andrea, I know.

From Pulse (24 January 2025) © 2025, Victor Fornari

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