she would like to say something. [ speaking french ] thank you. can i say something? i love you guys. i feel very fortunate. bahia got me this necklace right here, and i got her the same one because her favorite color was pink. she has like the same characteristics as me. so it s like kind of weird seeing myself in her. bahia and her dad are really close, kind of like me and him. so it s kind of ironic how we re both the same. i m george. nice to meet you. i think of you as family now. i m going to get it, i promise. i m going to practice french.
really is a miracle. there s no question about it. well, you are of all the gamblers on that plane, sir, you are the luckiest. absolutely. in reno, the world began to wonder at the luck and poise of 17-year-old george lamson jr. of st. paul. he lost his father in the debris of the old lockheed airliner, tossed clear of the fireball still strapped in his seat. he assumed the blessing and burden of being the only survivor. so i kicked the wall while we hit the ground. so i was just sliding through all this fire and debris. george s demeanor when he first came out, when we first were seeing him in the hospital bed and later when he came out in the wheelchair, he was sort of surprised to see everybody there. there was this sort of excitement. remember he was 17. all of a sudden all these people are there with all these cameras and they re all for him. and we were kind of conscious of
care. but when it stopped, when people don t remember who you are, it s a very big vacuum. and that hurt a lot. i would sleep a lot. and i would eat a lot, too. i mean, i d do everything i could not to think about what was going on in front of me. those amazing hands of george lamson. that year i dropped out of college. ten years from now i ll be jamming. this is like 1987. i was driving like 150 miles per hour on this particular curve. and i don t know why i did that. i just liked the thrill of being on the edge of death. and i felt like maybe i m being protected. and i wanted to see if it was really true. received money in 1986 and 1987. i went through that money pretty
i m reaching out to everybody. the reason why i m doing this is to try to help others. and that s my motivation. i completely understand where you re coming from. i was there. but if you ever change your mind please let me know. are you okay? yeah. i m okay. i just spent some time on the phone with erica delgado. it s closure to him. so it s helping him cope with everything, and getting to know what other people are feeling, i don t know, i think it s really cool. hello, bahia, my name is george lamson. i live in the united states. i was 17 years old at the time of the accident. all the people on that flight died, including my father. well, he sends letters out to hopefully like get a response in return. but usually it comes out not getting any. and he gets disappointed.
you weren t badly hurt at all, were you? no. i feel fine. i just have a few sores along the side of my leg and right here on my hand. i feel just great. very few people have ever survived a plane crash, george. maybe you could tell us how it went. well, we took off and everything seemed okay and we were fine. then all of a sudden we hit some turbulence. we started falling down from the sky. and the pilot told us we were going to crash. and we crashed. the pilot told you? what exactly did he say? he says, we re going down. going down. and how much time do you think you had between hearing that and actual impact? it was about two seconds at the very most. what did you do in those two seconds? any thoughts of trying to save your life? yes. i covered up my body as much as possible. i lifted my legs up and hoped for the best. considering the impact of the crash and what the crash site looks like, the fact that he s in the condition that he is in really is a miracle.