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4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL DECEMBER 13, 2017 O PINION Offbeat Oregon History: No. 472 By Finn JD John For The Sentinel At around 11 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, March 26, 1955, Florence Hollister was reclining on a comfortable win- dow seat on a Boeing 377 Stra- tocruiser as the stewardess bus- ily prepared a sumptuous lunch. The airplane was a big one by 1955 standards, a double-decker with four big radial engines, ca- pable of handling more than 80 passengers. Today, though, this one was comfortably empty; only 23 people were on board, including the crew of 8. Most of those other passengers were tourists looking forward to a week or two vacationing in Ha- waii. Not Mrs. Hollister, though. She and her husband, Claude, both former Portlanders who’d moved away during the World War, were actually on their way to Jakarta, where Claude had taken a job as aviation adviser to the Indonesian government. She gazed out the window, letting her eyes rest on the wing of the plane as the endless blue Pacifi c Ocean reeled away be- neath it, 10,000 feet below. They’d left Portland Interna- tional Airport about an hour before; they were now roughly 35 miles off the Oregon Coast, over international waters. And then the inboard engine, just a few feet away from her, disappeared in a great red ball of fi re, as if it had been hit with an artillery shell. Up in the cockpit, things had suddenly gotten very lively. Captain Herman S. Joslyn had noticed a ferocious vibration a few seconds before. Thinking it a cowl fl ap that had torn loose from the engine nacelle, Joslyn turned off the autopilot. And that’s when it happened. Jos- lyn didn’t see the fi reball, but he defi nitely felt the shuddering impact as the number-three en- gine suddenly ripped itself out of the wing and hurtled down into the sea below. Joslyn struggled with the el- evator controls. They seemed locked. The plane, trimmed for four engines and now run- ning on three, settled into a spiral dive. Joslyn stood with feet braced against the fi rewall, pulling up on the yoke. Nothing happened. He called to co-pilot Angus Hendrick to help. Slowly the controls started to respond — the nose came up, and the airspeed dropped. But now sud- denly the plane was on the verge of a stall-and-spin. Somehow Joslyn and Hen- drick managed to get the nose back down in time to prevent that. But by then, less than 1,000 feet lay between them and a watery grave. Joslyn shouted for power, and engineer M.F. Kerwick pushed the throttles forward. They did not respond. He tried them one at a time. Nothing. They were still stub- bornly making the same amount of power they’d been generating when the number-three engine tore free. And that just wasn’t enough power to keep the plane in the air. Joslyn shouted a warning to prepare for a ditching, and feathered the controls as best he could with Hendrick’s muscular help. Then the 70-ton airplane touched the water’s surface, skipped, and slammed to a stop. Trays and knives from the gal- ley, suitcases, books and papers, and seats torn loose from their bolts — many of them with pas- sengers still strapped into them — hurtled forward to crash into the front of the plane. The crew hastily collected the life rafts — which had fl own forward with the other stuff and demolished a row of seats (emp- ty ones, luckily) near the front of the plane. These they pitched out the main door, on the left- hand side of the plane. The pas- sengers, unbuckling themselves from the wreckage, made their way as best they could to the doors and hatches, jumped into the sea, and swam for the life rafts. Meanwhile co-pilot Hen- drick, who had helped Joslyn tame that death spiral after the engine blew, and engineer Ker- wick, who’d struggled with the throttles, had clambered out the emergency exit over the right side of the plane. After jump- ing into the drink, they’d found themselves faced with an im- possible task: swim around the sinking airplane to reach the life rafts on the other side, which the light surface wind was blowing away faster than they could swim. They wouldn’t make it, and the survivors in the life raft had to listen to their dwindling cries as the wind carried them away. A young banker from Auburn, David Darrow, also was unable to reach the life rafts, and an 80-year-old passenger named John Peterson died in his wife’s arms after being pulled aboard one of the life rafts. “I didn’t know it was John,” Mrs. Peterson told Associated Press reporter Elmer Vogel. “I just noticed that someone had been dragged in all covered with oil. I lifted his head up and laid it in my lap so it wouldn’t lie in the water on the bottom of the life raft. He opened his eyes and smiled weakly, then said, ‘Oh, is that you, Emma?’ Then he didn’t say any more.” More would doubtless have followed, but luckily a Navy ship was 18 miles away when the plane went down, and less than two hours later help was on the scene. Most of the survivors were badly chilled, but only one — a young Seattle woman named Patricia Lacey, whose leg was broken in the crash — suffered a serious injury (other than death, of course). She was rescued by purser Natalie Park- er, who swam around the air- plane to retrieve her as she lay unconscious in the water, and dragged her around the airplane in time to catch the last raft as the wind blew it past the bro- ken-off tail section. In the end, 19 of the original 23 passengers and crew made it home safe. Most of them were now faced with a decision: should they call off their vaca- tions and go home, or get on an- other airplane? For Gail Dillingham, 18, there wasn’t much choice. She lived in Hawaii, and would have to get home somehow. During the hearing on April 20, a mem- ber of the crowd asked her how she planned to go. “United Airlines,” she quipped. Several months later, the investigation concluded that propeller failure was to blame. The tip of one of the propeller blades had apparently started to tear — causing the vibration that Captain Joslyn mistook for a cowl fl ap — then ripped loose and fl ew off, at which point the engine ripped itself loose in a cloud of fuel mixture which was ignited by the engine ex- hausts. Luckily, the 220-knot slipstream blew the fi re out like a candle fl ame; had all the gas- oline that ended up fl oating on the sea after the ditching caught fi re, many more would have died. The engine, the report con- tinued, had physically removed a link in the electrical circuit when it went, disabling all electrical power on the wings. This had apparently disabled the servo-motors on the eleva- tor fl aps, making the controls very diffi cult to move; and the constant-speed propeller hubs, making it impossible to change the power settings. In the end, the lessons learned in the accident — especially the 14 recommendations that the heroic purser, Natalie Parker, offered at the preliminary hear- ing — ended up saving hun- dreds of lives in future ditchings over the years. Dr. Fuhrman: Does diet impact seasonal allergies? The best medicine for seasonal allergies may not be medicine. Instead, healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle go a long way in lessening symp- toms. A study of 56 different countries found that populations with higher rates of tobacco use, trans fat intake and acetaminophen use had higher rates of allergies and asthma; however, populations with higher intake of plant-based foods had lower rates of allergies and asthma. When you follow a high-nutrient diet, you are creating an environment in your body that pro- motes proper immune function and regulation of the infl ammatory response, which may help to blunt allergy symptoms naturally. The daily activities and quality of life of about 7.5 percent of adults and nine percent of children in the U.S, are impaired by the sneezing, cough- ing and red, itchy eyes that are symptomatic of allergies. Pollens from grass, trees and weeds are the pri- mary culprits; the immune system inappropriately recognizes these airborne substances as harmful invaders and produces antibodies. Each time one comes into contact with the pollen, an immune attack ensues, leading to infl ammation and cold- like symptoms. Factors associated with increased risk of allergy development in children include a family history of allergies, exposure to cigarette smoke during early childhood, childhood acetaminophen use and the relatively low intake of omega-3 fatty ac- ids in developed countries. Unfortunately, allergic conditions are increas- ing, and there are several theories for why this is occurring. One theory is the hygiene hypothesis, the idea that having less exposure to pathogens and bacteria early in life increases our susceptibil- ity to allergic conditions. According to this theory, early viral and bacterial exposure activates an im- mune response that aids the developing immune system, making later-life allergies less likely. Supporting this hypothesis, having pets, a greater number of siblings and a greater number of early viral infections are associated with decreased risk of allergies. The factors that affect development of aller- gies in children may also be relevant to allergy symptoms in adults. Higher intake of antioxidant nutrients, such as vitamin C and beta-carotene, is associated with reduced seasonal allergies in chil- dren. Similarly, high blood levels of carotenoids, including beta-carotene, are associated with a lower likelihood of seasonal allergies in adults. Omega-3 fatty acids are one widely studied di- etary factor associated with the development of allergies. Higher omega-3 intake (primarily ALA and EPA) and blood omega-3 levels have been as- sociated with reduced risk of seasonal allergies in adults. Several studies have suggested that ome- ga-3 supplementation during pregnancy likely re- duces the risk of allergic conditions in the child. ALA is found in walnuts and fl ax, chia, and hemp seeds. The omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA are commonly found in fi sh, but due to mercury and pollutants commonly found in fi sh, an algae-de- rived omega-3 supplement is a cleaner option. Adults defi cient in Vitamin D are more likely to have allergies than those with suffi cient vita- min D levels. Getting adequate vitamin D during pregnancy may be protective against the develop- ment of allergies in children. The safest way of getting adequate vitamin D is via supplementa- tion with D3. Currently, there has not been much data pub- lished on the effects of diet on symptoms of sea- sonal allergies. However, in my medical practice I have observed that the change to a high-nutrient diet is accompanied by a wide variety of benefi ts, including an improvement in allergy symptoms. I have seen many allergic patients slowly reduce the severity of their allergies, and over time many achieved complete relief from allergies. Add- ing certain supplemental phytochemicals, such as rosmarinic acid and luteolin from the Perilla frutescens seed, to a healthful diet may provide additional help for the nose and eye irritation characteristic of seasonal allergies. I wish you an allergy-free season! C ottage G rove S entinel (541) 942-3325 Administration James Rand, Regional Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager ................................................. Ext. 207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Aaron Ames, Marketing Specialist ........................................... Ext. 216 aames@cgsentinel.com Tammy Sayre, Marketing Specialist ......................................... Ext. 213 tsayre@cgsentinel.com Editorial Caitlyn May, Editor. ................................................................. Ext. 212 cmay@cgsentinel.com Zach Silva, Sport Editor ............................................................ 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