A negative undercurrent has crept into our lives the past few years, lowering our ambitions and emotional spirit to a level we thought we’d never see. Jobs gone. Homes gone. Money gone. Dreams all gone. We read the daily newspaper and turn on the TV and are hit, time and time again, with bad news: the escalation of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, the spread of cholera in Haiti, an out-of-control economy. But then, out of the darkness of adversity we are lifted, if only for a brief time, out of cynicism, pessimism, and gloom by something positive.
One story I recently read reminded me of the capability of the human spirit to rise and meet, even beat, unyielding challenges. ‘A Wall of White’ written by Jennifer Woodlief recounts the story of the 1982 avalanche at Alpine Meadows that killed seven people but also left one determined survivor, Anna Conrad. While tourists and locals were pulled out of the wreckage, Conrad was trapped for five days under a wooden bench with lockers piled on top, leaving just enough room in her virtual buried-alive box to move around, rub her feet, eat snow, and most importantly, breathe. Conrad slipped in and out
of consciousness, but these smallest of survival skills saved her life. What amazed me about this young 22-year-old woman was her undaunted courage and belief that she would eventually be rescued, even when she heard the voices of the ski patrol but then heard them walk away, she was certain they would return to save her.
The day that Conrad came into Tahoe Forest Hospital I happened to be fulfilling the practical part of an EMT course, shadowing a nurse and doing basic tasks such as taking vitals. It was a quiet day and so I hung around the nurses’ station and listened to nurse chatter. But then the calm of the eerie, sterile environment succumbed to a fiery storm and all hell broke loose. A skirmish of words flew around the halls: Survived. Avalanche. Alpine Meadows. Care Flight. Anna Conrad. I leaned in closer to the nurses’ station to hear what all the commotion was about as bits of information infiltrated to the front desk and emergency room. Throughout the day I never did see Conrad, and I never did get the full story until much later when she became famous all over the country. I remember reading about her college graduation in June; or did I watch it on TV or see a picture in the news? It was so long ago. What I do remember is Conrad in a cap and gown with crutches (part of one of her legs had been amputated) after having walked across the stage and receiving her diploma. Graduation must have taken on a whole new meaning for her, but all I could think of was the young, unsuspecting ski lift operator buried alive for five days and the shear guts she displayed. Woodlief relates Conrad’s inspiring words: ‘I just kept telling myself I could do it, I could do it. They’d find me.’
While reading ‘A Wall of White,’ I realized how Conrad’s experience paralleled the more recent event of the 33 miners trapped in the San Jose mine in Chile a half mile below the earth. Once again, we witnessed a harrowing story of courage and hope, and ultimately, survival. Like the rest of the world, I watched on TV the hearty miners, bare-chested, hot, sweaty, and dirty, singing the national anthem of the country that never gave up on them. They never gave up on one another either. One of the miners, Mario Sepulveda, told ABC News, ‘You fear, you cry, and you suffer. You wonder, ‘Is anyone coming to save us — or not?’ But doubt always was a passing moment, because we had faith. Down there, we were all … one religion.’
As each miner was lifted in a bullet-shaped capsule, after two months spent trapped underground, anxiously anticipating his freedom and enthusiastic greeting from Camp Hope, I watched from the sidelines and sighed and cried and thought, ‘Good God, courage and hope in the most destitute situation.’
If there’s anything we can bring into the New Year maybe it’s those two parts of us that we have dismissed amongst all the bad news: courage and hope. Or maybe it’s remembering those who fought hard to survive but lost. And then celebrating those who fought hard and won like the 33 men trapped a half mile under the earth and one young woman confined to an area not much bigger than herself. Maybe we take into the New Year the importance of listening to survivors’ stories and realizing that their will to stay alive, their determination, their unrelenting resolve, is telling us something, that there’s something to survive for. Maybe we need to figure out exactly what that ‘for’ is and then every day, every single day, honor it.
