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Since a miraculous landing and rescue earlier this year, the name Sullenberger has become a familiar one both here and abroad.
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 heading from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, N.C. The flight struck a flock of geese and Sullenberger was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survived the experience.
Since that day, life has been different for Sullenberger and his family. In a speech to more than 100 people at the Alamo Women’s Club on Wednesday, Lorrie Sullenberger, a fitness expert and personal trainer, detailed just how different it’s become.
In a luncheon address entitled, “Are you ready?” she talked about the accident, her husband’s actions and the aftermath. With a wry smile she described how on the afternoon of Jan. 15 she was in a pitch meeting with television executives regarding a fitness show when her husband began trying to call her.
“We were on the phone when Sully first began to call,” she recalled. “He first called on my cell, which I ignored.”
But she said that when he continued to call on both of the landlines to the home and the cell phone she told the executives that she should probably take the call.
“I was trying to be so professional, and not just be a wife who takes her husband’s call,” she explained.
Moments later he had laid out what had happened, that he was OK, and that he would not be home that night. After getting off the phone, she turned on the TV and began watching the coverage of the safe landing of Flight 1549.
“It was a completely unreal feeling to know that that was his voice on the phone and the images I was seeing on the TV,” she said. “My body started to shake violently and I sat down.”
At a friend’s urging she went and picked up her daughters, and they returned to the family’s Danville home to await further word on the man the media would dub, “The Hero of the Hudson.”
“We turned on the TV and sat in silence as our world, as we knew it, started to shift.”
She described the barrage of calls, e-mails and faxes from news organizations all over the world as “like having a firehose turned straight on you.”
She then spoke of the media siege of the family’s home and how she was forced to call in a public relations firm to handle the onslaught of reporters and photographers. She drew laughter and applause from the crowd when she talked about what life is like being under a microscope 24 hours a day.
“Like I tell people, you just can’t have that many good hair days in a row,” she joked.
While the media frenzy was problematic in many ways, it also made for some fun and interesting moments. Sullenberger told a story of how she was talking to the producers of the Jay Leno show when her daughter walked in talking on her cell phone.
“I touched her with my finger and told her that I was on the phone with the Jay Leno people and she did this (pointing her finger at the cell phone), ‘Matt Lauer.’ I said, ‘OK, you win.'”
This led to interviews on 60 Minutes, seats at the Superbowl, the Oscars and the Presidential Inaugural Ball.
“My initial impressions were that President Obama has the softest hands of any person I’ve ever met,” she recounted.
Sully has achieved “Santa Claus status,” she also informed the crowd. Mail addressed just to “Sully” finds its way to their home.
But her address touched on areas that had little to do with fame as well. She talked about the first time she saw Sully after the accident. She described a man who viewed himself differently from the hero being presented to the world.
“That was the weird part of all that,” she said. “The world was celebrating, but he felt like first of all he wasn’t supposed to end up in the Hudson. He struggled with, ‘Oh my god, I’m responsible for that.'”
Overall, though, she said the family has adjusted and adapted to its change in status. From the well wishers seeking autographs to the mountains of mail they still receive months later.
“There is power in a worldwide feel-good moment,” she said. “And Sully, and to some degree our family, was the face of that feel-good moment.”
We are so proud to have people like the Sullenberger’s in our vicinity. They are the “real deal’s” and when relatives back in the Mid-west share things with us, that were in their paper; they ask if these people are as outstanding, as it seems. We proudly say Yes, from all reports—-they really are! Sorry to have missed the luncheon, but it must have really been a great one, with Lorrie Sullenberger there speaking. Bless you, Sullenberger’s. Everyone in the area, is so proud to have you, as part of our community.
Okay…enough is enough. Yes he landed the aircraft in the water and no one was seriously injured. Maybe if all eye’s were looking forward and the Mr. Sullenberger was at the controls and not his co-pilot, things would be different.
And Jayne don’t be so quick to make a statement that “everyone in the area is proud to have you”.
By the way, pilot’s land everyday and guess what…landing on concrete can be just as challenging.
Yes, it was a great landing, but any pilot…every landing is a great landing.
I’m proud to have them as (almost)neighbors! My neighbor is a commercial pilot and was very impressed. I’ll go with that sentiment.
I missed the event, but I have no doubt that being thrust into the spotlight was life changing – and as I recall, Mr. S was uncomfortable with the level of hero worship coming his way. I’ll take him as a pilot any day.
Hey Ricko, America needs some real heros. Sure he got plenty of “air time” and I was glad to see it… I’m very gald to have him in our community as well. I have friends that live on his street in Danville and he’s the real deal. My hat’s off to him….He’s welcome at my campfire anytime.
Dave
Hey Dave,Diane and Jayne…I’m not saying he’s a great pilot. I’m just saying enough is enough guys. A hero, please a hero is a person that does something beyond the call of DUTY, DUTY… I’m sure he’s a real great guy, not a hero. He landed the aircraft and did a great job…now a hero would be a person that saved a person that may have fallen into the Hudson River…pulled him out and ultimately saved their life…that’s a hero, that wasn’t his job to risk his own life to save someone else. Beyond the call of DUTY…DUTY…Sully did his job and did it right.
Sully accomplished a miracle. He is a man of incredible discipline and courage to be able to stay cool and land that plane on the water. Ricko, spend less time splitting hairs over what is a hero and figure out what you could do to be half the man of Sully.
Hey Rick, do you mean doing something like giving up my job, care-giving 24/7 to my wife while dying of terminal cancer, doing things while care-giving that would get a grown man sick to their stomach, spending at least 10 hour’s a month in ER, spending 12 hours a month holding my wife’s hand while she is getting injected with Chemotherapy drugs, spending 24 hours a day watching my wife die…no I’m not a hero Rick, I’m just a person doing my job. People that do their job and do it well are not hero’s. Rick I wish a very good.
You spend 24/7 taking care of your wife, yet find time to split hairs in a way that diminishes another man’s accomplishment. Bizarre. Anyway, chemotherapy be damned. It’s a placebo, little more effective than medieval leeching. It’s all New Galenism. People with such ailments need vitamins, minerals, good sleep, activity, good ocean air. Insomnia is wreaking havoc on the modern world. One reason is lack of nutrition. Two the modern worlds technology induces hyperstimulation. Three: people are not right with themselves. The modern world is sorely lacking in spirituality and true social guidance. This all induces a lack of sleep. Our consciences gnaw at us at night. Sleep is the ultimate healer. Real sleep; not ambien or other drugged sleep. Sleep strengthens the immune system, which is vital in conquering all disease, including cancer. Big Pharma and the like own the modern medical industry. It is truly an example of the fox watching the hen house.
Ricko, my very best to you and your wife. Sadly, your experience is all too familiar to me and my family. At the end of the day we are limited in what we can accomplish toward extending life, but it sounds like you have been there for your wife in a very meaningful way. Maybe you are not a hero, but devotion is pretty cool too.