Customer Reviews

Exit Row: The Inside Story of Flight 965, Four Miraculous Survivors and What Airlines Do When Disaster Strikes

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I picked this up at the bookstore and read it in one sitting. The cover attracted my attention, but the story is very well written and centers on an unlikely relationship between a crisis worker (the author) and the crisis victim. Everyone can relate to it though, because everyone has some sort of tragedy in life, and be it small or large - it must be addressed sooner or later. This book shows how two people from different worlds formed a friendship that changed their lives. I also liked the details on the airplane black box - very informative.

This review is long; please stick with me since my perspective on this book comes from serving on the same Emergency Response Team as the author.

There's an interesting yin and yang in this book. At times author Tammy Kling writes with deep, touching insight, the kind that makes you pause and look into your own heart and soul. But at other times she seems quite superficial. She volunteered for the team and accepted the assignment (which could have been declined with no questions asked) yet seems to have regrets over doing so and the role she played. She relates numerous facts and details but I know some to be inaccurate, for example that ERT participation was considered critical to career advancement and some people were on the team strictly for that reason. In eight years of involvement with the ERT I never encountered anyone who wanted to step forward and work with crash survivors or the families of victims just to stay on a career advancement track. If there were such people, they were on the wrong team for the wrong reasons. In fact, participation was often discouraged by managers because employees were away from their regular jobs for weeks during deployments. During a 1994 response, the airline's VP of Operations had to instruct managers to quit pestering deployed team members about work projects so they could focus entirely on assisting their assigned families.

This Jekyll/Hyde quality also describes what may be the book's main flaw. The ERT member's role - to faciliate logistics for the victims of an air disaster and/or their families - is made crystal clear in training. From her own writing, the author understood this role yet inexplicably states that families would be better off if airline employees did not assist them directly - that all ERTs should be comprised of trained mental health professionals. This makes no sense.

Some background is necessary for a thorough understanding. One consistent and highly annoying misconception is that airline ERT members are sent to offer counseling or other mental health services. Nothing could be further from the truth. Access to counselors and mental health professionals is mandated under the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996 and trained professionals fulfill that role. This was also the case in this accident although it occurred in 1995.

So what do ERT members do? As a basic example, say a passenger loses his or her prescription glasses during an emergency evacuation. The assigned ERT member would take care of getting a replacement pair as soon as possible. It's really that simple. ERT members make arrangements - travel, hotels, child care, new clothes if needed and so on - the list is endless. And when the worst happens? Death is about details. Did you know that some states at one time required the name of a person's high school to appear on their death certificate? Neither did I until we had to gather that information from victims' families. People should not have to bother with those kinds of tasks when they're involved in an emergency or accident, and handling such details is exactly what ERT members are there for. It's unreasonable to think that a team solely comprised of mental health professionals could, would, or should fulfill that purpose.

This curious position seems to be based entirely on her own uncomfortable experience with a family in Cali. Well, imagine being a representative of an airline whose plane has crashed and working directly with people who have just lost a loved one in that horrific accident. Doesn't it seem glaringly obvious that it would be uncomfortable? That's why it's a special point of emphasis in ERT training, as are the facts that ERT duty is not for everyone and any team member can opt out of an assignment at any time for any reason, no questions asked. In fact, ERT is such an unusual and difficult assignment that prospective team members at our airline could not even commit to joining the team until *after* they attended training and had a full understanding of exactly what they were signing up for.

In addition, I personally know of many instances where ERT members' assistance was so deeply appreciated that accident survivors and deceased passengers' families, even in their trauma or grief, took the time to write and express their gratitude. So it seems clear that properly trained volunteer airline employees operating within the role descriptions provided to them can play a critical part in helping survivors and families through the first few weeks after the disaster.

The author's relationship with a survivor of the accident she worked is best described by saying all's well that ends well. It seems to have worked out for them but her contacting the survivor unexpectedly could have ended very badly on both sides. Just because it didn't should not be used as a retroactive justification.

The author does deserve credit for her descriptive writing, her charity work, and for telling her story. It was undoubtably difficult to delve into her memories of the deployment.

So with those caveats, this book is worth reading, mainly because there are so few books that offer any insight at all into the backstory of ERT deployments. Just don't blindly accept it as an unimpeachable source.

In response to doubletrouble... I read in a newspaper article that the author is giving 100% of the proceeds of this book to a children's charity. So, anyhow, I felt the book very interesting and a great testimony about airplane crashes and crisis workers! Everyone involved in the Sept 11th activation should read it. It was very moving.

Having adopted two children, I loved Tammy's other book, "Searching for a Piece of My Soul" - her own account of searching for her father and the experience of others who have also searched for family members. I personally used it as a guide and have recommended it to scores of others. Now Tammy's back with a new book that chronicles another of her personal experiences -- this time leading an Emergency Response Team that helped the families and survivors of an airline crash cope with the tragedy. The book is well written, very touching and a must read for nervous airline passengers such as myself -- the final chapter gives some good, practical advice about "flying smart." Tammy Kling is fast becoming one of my favorite authors, not just because of her great skill as a writer but also due to her gift for taking her extraordinary experiences and relating them to readers so that they come away not only entertained but informed and indeed moved.

Review for Exit Row and response to doubletroublefive-o

I was deeply touched by this book, and surprised to find it contained much more than the title and subtitle hinted at. Not everyone is going to get the same thing out of a book, but in all fairness and honesty, I can only conclude that doubletroublefive-o did not read to the end of the book. Had he or she done so, the full picture would have come clear.

In a serendipitous way, two survivors of Flight 965 (one of the actual crash, the other the aftermath) meet and allow their lives to be enhanced by the other. Together they create a project to benefit orphans around the world, building swingsets as evidence of their love and concern. In truth, Mercedes became an orphan as a result of the crash, even though she was an adult by then. I can attest to that, because it's the way I felt the day my second parent died and I was already an adult and parent of several children myself. The loss of parents, so closely allied with our past, helps us empathize with those who are orphaned in a more profound sense as children.
Connected with this is the fact that the author mentions (to me a foreshadowing) the loss of her father at age 7, the details of which she doesn't learn for many years.

I applaud the writer of this book and her close ally and friend who helped inspire it. This book is one more proof that mankind has the capacity to turn tragedy into a lasting expression of gratitude for life.

The first chapter is gripping -- relating how Flight 965 to Colombia hit the side of a mountain in 1995. The writing is tight and sensitive. But -- I don't exaggerate -- the rest of the book reads like the diary of a suburban high school girl on her first internship... right down to what color jacket she packed, what kinds of sandwiches she ate for lunch and the first names of all the people she met who sat around mostly drumming their fingers' on their desks. The author spent 99% of her assignment to assist crash victims' families doing paperwork (!!!!) The other 1% of the story is revealed on the inside flap. Once you've read that, you've essentially read the book. How any editor could have published this air sandwich of a book, I really can't understand. It is so empty in the middle, I wanted to pull my hair out. Still I persevered, thinking it would redeem itself. It didn't.

Being a Volunteer of an Emergency Response Team, this book has been an eye opener as to what really happens in real life. Tammy, thank you for such a vivid and detailed information of your journey that we all Volunteers hope never have to go through.

This is a must buy/must read. The details are unbelievable and the storyline is very true.

I had been introduced to this author's work from a friend and am glad I was. The book is exceptionally well written containing both intense detail and unwavering compassion. The writing allows you to become one with the author's experience of sadness and joy. I particularly felt the pain as she mentioned the little boy, who took his grief out on her as a representative of the airline. This type of up close and personal writing style left me with a sense of closeness as if I personally knew the author. I would highly recommend reading any other books by Tammy Kling.

Was interested in this because I, too, have trained for responding to a major airline disaster. Learned alot from this book.