— was closest to the explosion’s center.
In other circumstances she would have been killed instantly, as was D. O. Guerrero. Two things — for the moment — saved her.
Interposed between Gwen and the explosion were Guerrero’s body and the aircraft toilet door. Neither was an effective shield, yet the two together were sufficient to delay the blast’s initial force the fraction of a second.
Within that fractional time the airplane’s skin ripped, and the second explosion — explosive decompression — occurred.
The dynamite blast still struck Gwen, hurling her backward, gravely injured and bleeding, but its force now had an opposing force — the outward rush of air through the hole in the fuselage at the aircraft’s rear. The effect was as if two tornadoes met head-on. An instant later the decompression triumphed, sweeping the original explosion out with it into the high-altitude, darkened night.
Despite the forcefulness of the explosion, injuries were not widespread.
Gwen Meighen, the most critically hurt, lay unconscious in the aisle. Next to her, the owlish young man who had emerged from the toilet and startled Guerrero, was wounded, bleeding badly, and dazed, but still on his feet and conscious. A half dozen passengers nearby sustained cuts and contusions from splinters and bomb fragments. Others were struck, and stunned or bruised by hurting objects impelled toward the aircraft’s rear by the explosive decompression, but none of the latter injuries was major.
At first, after decompression, all who were not secure in seats were impelled by suction toward the gaping hole in the aircraft’s rear. From this danger, too, Gwen Meighen was in gravest peril. But she had fallen so that an arm — instinctively or accidentally — encircled a seat base. It prevented her from being dragged farther, and her body blocked others.
After the initial outrush of air, the suction lessened.
Now, the greatest immediate danger for all — injured or not — was lack of oxygen.
Although oxygen masks dropped promptly from their housings, only a handful of passengers had grasped and put them on at once.
Before it was too late, however, a few people had acted. Stewardesses, responding to their training, and wherever they happened to be, seized masks and motioned others to do likewise. Three doctors, traveling with their wives as members of an off-season vacation tour, realized the need for speed, donned masks themselves and gave hasty instructions to those around them. Judy, the alert, eighteen-year-old niece of Customs Inspector Standish, placed a mask over the face of the baby in the seat beside her, as well as over her own. She then immediately signaled the baby’s parents, and others across the aisle, to use oxygen. Mrs. Quonsett, the old lady stowaway, having observed oxygen demonstrations many times during her illegal flights, knew what to do. She took a mask herself and handed one to her friend, the oboe player, whom she pulled back into his seat beside her. Mrs. Quonsett had no idea if she was going to live or die, and found herself not greatly worried; but whatever happened, she intended to know what was going on until the very last moment.
Someone thrust a mask at the young man near Gwen who had been wounded. Though swaying, and scarcely aware of what was happening, he managed to hold it to his face.
Even so, barely half the passengers were on oxygen at the end of fifteen seconds — the critical time. By then, those not breathing oxygen were lapsing into drowsy stupor; in another fifteen seconds, most were unconscious.
Gwen Meighen received no oxygen, nor immediate help. The unconsciousness, caused by her injuries, deepened.
Then, on the flight deck, Anson Harris, accepting the risk of further structural damage and possible total destruction of the aircraft, made his decision for a high speed dive, saving Gwen and others from asphyxiation.
The dive began at twenty-eight thousand feet altitude; it ended, two and a half minutes later, at ten thousand feet.
A human being can survive without oxygen for three to four minutes without damage to the brain.
For the first half of the dive — for a minute and a quarter, down to nineteen thousand feet — the air continued to be rarefied, and insufficient to support life. Below that point, increasing amounts of oxygen were present and breathable.
At twelve thousand feet regular breathing was possible. By ten — with little time to spare, but enough — consciousness returned to all aboard Flight Two who had lost it, excepting Gwen. Many were unaware of having been unconscious at all.
Gradually, as initial shock wore off, passengers and the remaining stewardesses took stock of their situation. The stewardess who was second in seniority after Gwen — a pert blonde from Oak Lawn, Illinois — hurried toward the injured at the rear. Though her face paled, she called urgently, “Is there a doctor, please?”
“Yes, miss.” Dr. Compagno had already moved from his seat without waiting to be called. A small, sharp- featured man who moved impatiently and talked quickly with a Brooklyn accent, he surveyed the scene hurriedly, conscious of the already biting cold, the wind streaming noisily through the gaping hole in the fuselage. Where the toilets and rear galley had been was a twisted mess of charred and bloodstained wood and metal. The back of the fuselage to the interior of the tail was open, with control wires and structural assemblies exposed.
The doctor raised his voice to make himself heard above the noise of wind and engines, constant and encompassing now that the cabin was no longer sealed.
“I suggest you move as many people as you can nearer the front. Keep everyone as warm as possible. We’ll need blankets for those who are hurt.”
The stewardess said doubtfully, “I’ll try to find some.” Many of the blankets normally stored in overhead racks had been swept out, along with passengers’ extra clothing and other objects, in the whirlwind of decompression.
The two other doctors from Dr. Compagno’s tour party joined him. One instructed another stewardess, “Bring us all the first aid equipment you have.” Compagno — already on his knees beside Gwen — was the only one of the three with a medical bag.
Carrying a bag with emergency supplies wherever he went was characteristic of Milton Compagno. So was taking charge now, even though — as a G.P. — he was outranked professionally by the other two doctors who were internists.
Milton Compagno never considered himself off duty. Thirty-five years ago, as a young man who had fought an upward battle from a New York slum, he hung out a shingle in Chicago’s Little Italy, near Milwaukee and Grand Avenues. Since then — as his wife told it, usually with resignation — the only time he ceased practicing medicine was while he slept. He enjoyed being needed. He acted as if his profession were a prize he had won, which, if not guarded, would slip away. He had never been known to refuse to see a patient at any hour, or to fail to make a house call if sent for. He never drove past an accident scene as did many of his medical brethren, fearing malpractice suits; he always stopped, got out of his car, and did what he could. He kept conscientiously up to date. Yet the more he worked, the more he seemed to thrive. He gave the impression of running through each day as if he planned to assuage the world’s ailments in a lifetime, of which too little was left.
The journey to Rome — many years postponed — was to visit the birthplace of his parents. With his wife, Dr. Compagno was to be away a month, and because he was growing old, he had agreed that the time should be a total rest. Yet he fully anticipated that somewhere en route, or perhaps in Italy (never mind regulations about not being licensed) he would be needed. If so, he was ready. It did not surprise him that he was needed now.
He moved first to Gwen who was clearly most critical among those hurt. He told his colleagues, over his shoulder, “You attend to the others.”
In the narrow aisle, Dr. Compagno turned Gwen over partially, leaning forward to detect if she was breathing. She was, but her breath was light and shallow. He called to the stewardess he had been speaking to, “I need oxygen down here.” While the girl brought a portable bottle and mask, he checked Gwen’s mouth for an unobstructed airway; there were smashed teeth, which he removed, and a good deal of blood; he made sure the bleeding was not preventing respiration. He told the stewardess, “Hold the mask in place.” The oxygen hissed. Within a minute or two a vestige of color returned to Gwen’s skin, which had been ominously white.
Meanwhile, he began to control bleeding, extensive around the face and chest. Working quickly, he used a hemostat to clamp off a facial artery — worst site of external hemorrhage — and pressure dressings elsewhere. He had already detected a probable fracture of the clavicle and left arm, which would need to be splinted later. He was
