Memoirs of a Frequent Business Traveler
One of you readers made a special request a while back to have me recount my very worst business trip experience ever, so here it is. A client meeting was scheduled on the Thursday before the Easter weekend in April 2003. At the time, I was working as a regional operations manager for a corporate travel agency with headquarters in Philadelphia. Three previous attempts to visit this client at their Milwaukee headquarters had failed earlier in the year, including a meeting in January that was cancelled (after I landed in Milwaukee) due to a bad snowstorm less than an hour before it was to start. I was able to leave Huntsville on an early Thursday morning connection through O’Hare/Chicago to make the early afternoon meeting, and take a return connection in the early evening, so no over night stay was required. My client and I were successful this time to have our much-delayed meeting. I took the cab back to Milwaukee airport looking forward to getting home in time for the Easter weekend as thunderstorms started to move in over Milwaukee from the west. Just as I arrived to my American Airline gate for the short hop to O’Hare, the weather closed in and within a few minutes the airport was shut-down and all flights grounded. After waiting in a long line at the ticket counter, the agent told me that all other flights that evening and all the next day were sold-out due to a busy holiday. The first flight she could re-book me on was Saturday morning. An announcement came over the airport PA system saying that shuttle buses where available for transportation to O’Hare, which is 95 miles south for those who wanted other options than waiting for the airport to re-open. The agent told me if I left right then, I could still make my connecting flight in O’Hare to Huntsville. I dashed out the door and jumped on the first Chicago-bound bus that pulled up to the curb.The bus I boarded was a typical shuttle bus used by hotels and rental car companies. It was configured much like a mini school bus with bench seating in rows. The bus was packed with other stranded travelers, and I was able to get the last seat in the very back bench next to the window. We quickly shot out into the blinding rain storm and soon racing along I-95 south towards Chicago.About 45 minutes into the ride, my daydream stare out the window was interrupted by a loud scream near the front of the bus. About that same moment, I had the sensation that the bus had become air born and was careening off to the right and down into a large canal that was parallel to the Interstate. Something was wrong with the bus driver, and someone was yelling to “wake him up!” The bus landed in the canal with a huge crash but still on all four wheels, and I could see water and cat tails flying up past the window as we continued to plow ahead at high speed. Everyone was screaming now and trying to hold onto something as the bus continued to race through the canal and then up an embankment, through a wire fence, and eventually coming to a stop in a freshly plowed field. The bus was so packed with people that I couldn’t see much past the next row of flaying passengers. Finally, we came to a stop and miraculously did not roll over, but I could hear the engine revving and mud was flying out from the rear tires. The driver was slumped over the wheel and his foot still pressing the accelerator to the floor. Finally, one of the people in the front was able to wrench the driver out of his seat and onto the floor of the bus, and kill the engine.Everyone was frantically making calls on cell phones, as two passengers laid the driver out and began doing CPR. I looked out the bus rear window and could not believe how far we had traveled off the pavement, and more amazing that we hadn’t flipped over in the slide up out of the canal. Cars on both sides of the Interstate were pulling off and people were wading through the canal towards us. The storm continued to rage on outside and the two passengers continued to administer CPR. I caught a glimpse of the driver, then, and I could tell by the shocking white color of his face that he was probably beyond help. A fire truck and several ambulances arrived within 10 minutes and began the challenge of crossing the canal with emergency equipment. The canal was swollen from the heavy rain and getting deeper by the minute. When the paramedics and state troopers boarded the bus, they told everyone to evacuate so that the paramedics could work. For those of us in the back (about 15 of us) we were told to leave the bus through the emergency exit window at the back. The first person out was a young woman who managed to fall out head-first and into a big tangle of the barbed wire fence the bus had snagged when it topped the hill. She screamed for help and was immediately assisted by a couple bystanders. The wire fence had slashed her face badly and more paramedics were rushing to assist her. After more volunteers pushed and pulled the ball of wire away from the exit area, the rest of us made the awkward 7-foot jump out of the window. I landed feet-first in black, sticky mud that came up past my ankles.The rain continued to pound down, and the crash survivors were huddled in little circles giving statements to the state troopers. I was drenched to the bone in my wool business suit, and not one of us had umbrellas. The trooper that interviewed me was trying to write information down on a wet note pad. Finally, another fire truck arrived to the scene and began handing out blankets to those of us standing in the rain and mud. I was so cold my teeth began to chatter as the paramedics continued to make an attempt to resuscitate the bus driver. It took almost two hours for another bus to arrive to get us on to Chicago. By that time, I had missed my Huntsville connection. The woman injured in the jump from the emergency exit was taken in a separate ambulance to a local hospital about the time our new shuttle arrived.The medics were not able to revive the bus driver, and the local coroner was enroute. Because of this, no one was allowed back on the bus except officials, so personal items were retrieved by the troopers and piled up in the rain on a wet blanket. It was nearly dark when we made our way out of the black muck, across a now rushing canal and up to the waiting bus on the Interstate. The rescue squads had rigged up a makeshift bridge using body boards to assist in crossing the deepest part of the canal. It was slow going and a little scary crossing the water on an unstable flotation device, and the guy in front of me somehow managed to lose a shoe crossing over. Several of us spent a few minutes fishing around for it, but it was never found, and the poor guy had to board the new bus without it. Chatting with fellow crash victims during the hour-long ride on down to Chicago, I learned that the two people who had initially performed CPR were soccer coaches enroute to a conference in Dallas. Another young couple was on their way to a honeymoon trip to Tahiti, and had now missed their connection and was trying to figure-out how they could salvage their trip plans. While I was miserable and filthy with mud, my situation was not as bad as some others were. I never got a real good look at the bus driver while boarding in Milwaukee, but several others in our group said he had looked sickly while getting luggage stowed in the baggage area. We all suspect he had either a massive heart attack or stroke. He simply slumped over the steering wheel with his foot planted on the accelerator. Moments before the accident the bus had crossed under an overpass, so we were lucky the timing was such that we wrecked the way we did. We could have as just as easily lurched to the right into on-coming traffic, or hit another car or tree. Other than the bus driver and the woman who fell into the fencing wire, no one else on the bus was hurt. I had assumed that once we got to Chicago we would be escorted as a group to a private lounge area and offered dry clothing or something. Instead, the shuttle driver dropped each of us off at the assigned airline drop-point. I had missed my Huntsville flight by almost four hours. My wool suite was beginning to smell like a randy billy goat, and my muddy shoes squeaked as I made my way to the American Airlines ticket counter. I was a sorry sight, and when the ticket agent got a look at me (and a whiff of my wool suite) he made extra efforts in trying to get me home. He was able to book me a seat on the first flight to Huntsville in the morning, and provided me a meal and hotel voucher. It was after 11 pm when I got checked-in to a hotel room and able to get out of the wet and muddy clothing. I washed both my shirt and pants in the bathtub, and used a hot dry iron to dry the clothes before I fell into bed. The hotel was able to provide me a shaving kit and hair brush, but they were out of toothbrushes. To this day, I always carry a toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste in my laptop bag where ever I go. I was embarrassed to be seen in public the next day with my stained business suit and ruined dress shoes, but I made it home by early afternoon on Good Friday. Milwaukee and I are jinxed, as I have had one other bad travel experience in Wisconsin a few years later.
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