Volume 2 Issue 15

December 1, 2006

Lettitor
By Heather Holbrook

    Tis the season to go shopping, dress up, go to parties and be festive. It seems like for every gift I find for a loved one, I see something else I want for myself. Shoes come to mind.
      Like almost every other woman on Earth, I love shoes and have altogether too many pairs. But I have been doing very well this season and have not bought any new ones in at least a month and a half. Instead, I am pulling out my fun ones (electric blue metallic stiletto sandals with rhinestones or vintage platform black patent pumps?) to wear to the first of many island holiday parties. And as I sit on the floor surrounded by shoe boxes, I start thinking.
      The other day a friend who had a prickly run-in with a neighbor said, “I had no idea all she has been going through,” referring to our elderly neighbor’s grapplings with the final stages of cancer. And this brought home to me how true it is that we don’t know the joys and sorrows of the people we may pass every day in our communities. The mail carrier who delivers your stack of cards/catalogs/bills to your mailbox every day. She may wave back to you even though her heart is heavy having just learned that her son will not be home from Iraq for another 3 months. The checkout lady at the grocery store who seems a little cranky may be because she is behind on her rent and can’t buy her children all the things they are asking for Christmas this year. The guy in traffic who flashes an unfriendly gesture (certainly not on our islands!) may have just been downsized at work and doesn’t know what to do with himself. You never know what other people are going though in their lives. The happy ones are easy to spot; the hurting ones act out in all kinds of ways.
      But looking at all these shoes on the floor got me thinking about what it means to walk a mile in another person’s shoes. Forget the mile, just to stand in another’s shoes and take in the view. I’ve decided to be a little more neighborly and tolerant with everyone I meet this holiday season. It’s good for the soul. Just a friendly reminder to give the curmudgeons you may encounter this month the benefit of the doubt and bestow upon them a little compassion. There is plenty to go around.
      And maybe count your blessings for the shoes (red Dansko clogs, size 7) you’re in right now.

Mind the gap:
A parents shares her story of elevator dangers
By Mary Gatch

     As residential elevators become more common on our islands, I think it is important to share my family’s story and perhaps prevent a future accident. We built a house on Sullivan’s Island a few years ago and decided to install an Inclinator elevator. Our primary reasons were to ensure access for our aging parents and given the challenges we’ve had with stairs, we wanted to provide a safer way to get our young children in and out of the house.
      We studied and tested all of the safety features of this elevator, and installed a solid accordion door to prevent potential accidents with little fingers. We thought these were sufficient safeguards, but still disallowed our children from going into the elevator alone.
      One day as we were all preparing to leave the house, my husband James and I were getting some things from other rooms and heard the elevator motor engage followed by terrified screams from our daughter, Julian, age four at the time. We ran to find our two-year-old son Adam outside the elevator and Julian screaming from inside. We have never before and never since heard such terror. We could hear Julian very loudly so we assumed that she was inside the elevator with the interior door open. One of the safety features is that the elevator stops if either the interior door or one of the exterior doors is open. Frantic, we assumed that the elevator had started its descent with our son pushing the down button from the outside; then, Julian opened the interior door, stopped the descent, and started to scream. We were afraid that she had been injured in the process because of the terror in her voice.
     I ran to find a screwdriver (which we now keep in a special place near the elevator). You can disengage the safety mechanism and open the exterior door by using a screwdriver or similar object to unlock the elevator from an access hole at the top of the door. It’s challenging to find the right spot to disengage the lock. It’s especially challenging when you are in a state of panic.
      During all of this, I tried to raise my voice above Julian’s screams to ask her to close the interior door. I thought this would allow us to raise the elevator back up to let her out. She could not hear us as she was screaming continuously for us to open the door and that Adam had pushed the ‘down’ button.
      Suddenly, we were able to open the exterior door and found the interior door open and Julian inside, trembling, but unharmed. Julian told us that she had not been inside the elevator but was hanging onto the ledge, and she pointed to the ledge adjacent to the exterior door. The elevator only goes from ground level to our first floor, so the drop is about 10 feet. The problem becomes not so much the drop, but that the elevator can kill kids as it moves.
      Our minds were not ready to process this information.
      It would be two days before we fully understood what had happened. A couple of nights later, my mind and heart were ready to really listen to my little girl. She told me again that she was not inside the elevator. When I asked for more information, the horror unfolded. As it turned out, my children had opened the exterior door and Julian had walked towards a closed interior door. Our son closed the exterior door behind her and pushed the ‘down’ button. Our daughter was trapped in the small space between the two doors as the elevator was descending. She turned and grabbed the door handle, hanging on to the ledge as the elevator descended to ground level. She felt the elevator graze her back. When we pushed the up button thinking she was inside, the elevator ascended behind her. When it reached the top, she opened the interior door and went inside. This is where we found her.
      After listening to my daughter’s full explanation, I trembled downstairs to confirm that the space in between the doors was indeed large enough that even I could fit inside with both doors closed.
     The next day, my friend was visiting from Utah ad she informed us that the same thing had happened to a child in her town just a few weeks before. That child and many others were killed by this same safety flaw.
      I am sharing this story in the hope that all homeowners with elevators will check to ensure that all elevators are constructed such that a child cannot fit into the space between the doors. Builders, inspectors, and elevator companies should also be mindful not to allow this flaw which is more common now as exterior walls are frequently formed by 6 inch studs. Somewhere between the elevator installer, builder, and inspector (and us!), this flaw should have been avoided. It can be rectified by a simple solution that our builder installed after our family’s scare. The photo with this story shows our exterior door with an attached ‘box’ that fills the space between the doors. It is important that the top is slanted at an angle so a child would not climb on top of the box.
    Also, I’d recommend practicing emergency elevator procedures at least once a year. And keep a tool close to the elevator that you can use to open the door in the event of an emergency.
      Julian clung to that ledge holding on to a door knob we were frantically moving from the other side, and only grace kept her head safely turned from harm. We hope our story will help create awareness to this potential elevator hazard as the holiday season approaches, when many of us will be entertaining friends and family, young and old. 

How’d you like some “wild blue” with your “yonder”?
By Heather Holbrook

     You know the feeling you get when you’re driving a gorgeous vintage convertible under a beautiful Carolina blue sky, cruising down an empty road and feeling great? Well this one day excursion was exactly like that if you add to it a spectacular view at 1000 feet over the islands. I’m no dare devil and take self-preservation pretty seriously, but given the chance to soar over the Lowcountry in a perfectly restored 1942 Boeing Stearman, it was an opportunity too grand to pass up.
      On a clear morning a few days before Thanksgiving, I drove over to Charleston Executive Terminal on John’s Island to meet my pilot Chris Cochran, a man who cuts a dashing aviator figure in his leather headgear, bent cigarette at the corner of his mouth. Also a Certified Flight Instructor, Chris told me how he came to name his company Air Tiger. “Named for my mentor, a WWI fighter pilot nicknamed Tiger,” he said as he added some oil to the 225 horsepower Lycoming engine.
      I have flown in all kinds of Boeing aircraft since I was an infant. While I appreciate the practical aspect of air travel, I have never gotten very excited about planes. But this adventure was shaping up to be a shot of unfiltered joy to the soul.
      Sitting up in front of the two-seater, open-cockpit US Army trainer, admiring her spruce propeller and glossy yellow paint, I had all sorts of thoughts running through my head. With no experience required on my part, my only instructions were to buckle in and if I had anything to communicate to Chris, to speak into the mouthpiece of my radio headset. I will admit to wearing three layers plus a down jacket, scarf and gloves, unsure just how cold it’d be up there. And I am so glad I brought sunglasses. Now I know why aviator-style sunglasses are called that; the wraparound feature protects your eyes from the wind.
      Due to the design of the plane, the pilot must do S turns when taxiing down the runway prior to takeoff. Sitting in the position he’s in at the back of the craft, the pilot cannot see over the nose. For some reason the fact that Chris could not see where he was going did not alarm me in the least. After all, he has done this hundreds of times and the concrete runway is a pretty straight shot. My anticipation matched the acceleration of the engine as we gained speed and outran gravity’s grasp. Up, up we went and save for the rushing wind and churning engine, it was a peaceful flight. Easy and beautiful.
      Soaring overhead with downtown Charleston to the left and the ocean on the right, it occurred to me all at once why the colors blue and green are my favorites. We skimmed over swirls of green grasses and treetops and rivers, blue inlets and waterways; at one point seemingly hundreds of feet above the water. Tear jerking images akin to what artist Mary Edna Fraser expressed through her massive batik silk artwork entitled “South Carolina Coastline 1990” that graces the downtown Charleston Visitors Center. What a singular perspective to witness the undulating backs of adult dolphin swimming parallel to the beach. The jetties, the tankers that looked no bigger than bathtub toys.
     Cruising around the water-logged Morris lighthouse, we headed eastward toward Sullivan’s Island where I could follow the shadow of our plane as it flushed out a Great Blue Heron from its hiding place. Nearing our lighthouse we circled over Stations 19, 20 and 21, tipping a wing to get a better look at my own tin roof and see my children waving their arms below. Astonishingly, the historic batteries Gadsden and Thomson as well as Fort Moultrie below were almost impossible to pick out of the landscape, even from this altitude, which confirms for me just how hard it must have been for enemy ships at sea level to spy them years ago.
       I could have stayed up there for another hour or two and still have not taken in everything I wanted to see. Though my ride did not take me past Breach Inlet this time, I plan to get a good look at the Isle of Palms next time. But first I was in for an excellent landing onto the grass beside the runway with nary a bump. Chris said to me, “You were pretty quiet up there; did you enjoy it?” I was speechless, which is unusual for a verbose person like me.
      Who knew this kind of fun is for sale? $200 for 30 minutes aloft and $100 for a scenic ride. People ask me if I’d ever do it again. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. For more information about AirTiger Biplane Flights, go to www.atiger.net or call Chris at 810-8835.