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 electra airliner, tossed clear of the fireball still strapped in his the cretin high senior 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 then later when he came out in the wheelchair, he was sort of surprised to see everybody there. you know, 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. you know? and we were kind of conscious of that. and yet we knew he had been through this horrific accident. when the images of that moment were carried back around the country, because it was covered