MCKINNEY, Texas — Thursday, a Cessna with 3 people on board crashed into a natural materials site in McKinney. Pilot Michael Lewis and passenger Gustavo Moreno did not survive. But mechanic Randy Williams did.
"A miracle, it's really miracle it’s just amazing," Randy's sister, Lauren Chaffee, told WFAA.
Lauren and her other brother Cody live out of town, but both are staying in a Dallas hotel room near the hospital for the foreseeable future, until their brother is healed.
"It’s hard to wrap your mind around something like that, like to even picture your own brother being in a plane crash," Lauren continued.
Lauren told WFAA Randy is an aircraft mechanic. He was on the plane, she said, for a test flight when it crashed shortly after takeoff. Miraculously, Randy was pulled from the debris alive, so bruised, bloody and bloated he was nearly unrecognizable.
"And then of course worse than that almost all of his limbs were broken, just shattered to pieces," Cody said.
"It’s gut wrenching you can’t even describe the feelings or the thoughts," Lauren added.
But randy survived, his siblings believe, because the plane crashed next to a construction crew. That crew had a water tank, as captured on camera, and they rushed over to put out the fire before it spread to the part of the plane Randy was in.
"They’re real life heroes, literally heroes he would have died," Cody said.
"We’re all sure if he wasn’t there he would have died as well," Lauren added.
Randy has 22 injuries, his siblings told WFAA. He was just extubated and has come out of his medically induced coma. He's finally spoken, just not much. He does recognize his family, they said, but he does not remember what happened.
"So, we had to tell him a few times," Lauren said.
Lauren and Cody have not yet told their brother the other two men did not make it. They want him focused on healing, on getting healthy to care for his 2-year-old son who still gets to grow up with his dad. Which is why despite the terrible trauma their brother has lived through, they feel like the luckiest family alive.
"Something inside you keeps you calm," Cody said. "Because you’re like, he’s alive."
Randy’s family and friends created this GoFundMe to raise money to pay his rent and other expenses while he’s out of work.