The Man in the Water

Roger Rosenblatt's emotional essay on Air Florida Flight 90 and the heroes on that unforgettable day.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• air
• florida
• flight
• 90
• rosenblatt
• arland
• williams

[JaguarEnglish]

Thanks Ms. Covington - for your trust in the usefulness of this lil video

[whynvtee]

wow it is so good when you can look at what your reading Thank you Ms. Covington not only did we get to read a good story in your Reading class you want all out and found this good video to help us with or test too. Your student Mr.T. Johnson

[JaguarEnglish]

@whynvtee You MADE my day by letting me know you class used the video

[fasil396]

I read this story in my literature text book and we also talked about it in class, my teacher was very emotional as we were discussing.

[rainsdude]

He is and always will be one of my heros

[7Keno7]

wait and wasnt this on the 25 of january not the 13? i dont want this tragic event to have happened on the same day my birthday is

[7Keno7]

those exact words that are being read are what i had to read as a sight passage on my english 12U exam today, usually the stuff is non fiction but this one was real and it was very inspiring to read

[StHolyshi]

Yesterday was 30 years since the day.

I may have only been about 7 years old at the time, but we all knew of "the Man in the water". And one of the biggest reasons was the video footage on the news, repeated over and over. Much of that footage is capture in the various videos about the crash, and it's heroes, on Youtube and elsewhere. We the public had never really saw the aftermath of a tragedy unfold like that, on television, and were terrified for the people suffering through it.

[StHolyshi]

I went looking for the specific images that put this man so deeply in our hearts, young and old alike. I can't seem to find it anywhere.

That footage showed him in action. You could see his face clearly, and he wore a look that captured the whole horrible scene etched into his face, a look resigned to his fate, and the pain of the water, but he NEVER stopped. Every second he could, he was trying to get the others there with him out of that sudden freezing hell, or talking to them gently.

[StHolyshi]

As we pressed our faces to TV sets across the country, unable to help from miles away, we watched as HE was our hands and legs, doing what we couldn't, a sense of strength in the center of helplessness.

I can't find what my little self and so many other saw that night, and talked about for days. But that's why we get choked up to think of him, and the others there that day, those dropped cruelly into the freezing Potomac, and the strangers who dove in to get them.

[AntiqueBreakfast]

@fishingjoe45 **raises glass** here, here!

[AlesandrosX]

Lost but not forgotten.