News of yet another aviation disaster (this one in the all-but-impenetrable Alaska wilderness) has an extra heart-wrenching twist: a mother who survived a plane crash in remote southwest Alaska was forced to leave her fatally injured infant son to lead rescuers slowed by fog to the crash site.
According to an AP report, Melanie Coffee, a 25-year-old resident of Mountain Village, Alas., trekked nearly a mile through frigid weather from the site of crash towards the lights of the nearby village of Saint Marys Friday night. Rescuers credit her with saving the five other survivors, all of whom were seriously injured, four critically. The crash killed four of the regional aircraft’s ten passengers, including pilot Terry Hansen, passengers Rose and Richard Polty, and Coffee’s five-month-old son, Wyatt.