Not for the obvious reason that I was minutes from driving over it with my family, but because that day we came together like no other.
I feel I've always been lucky. I have a job I love, where I get to have a ringside seat to history.
Three decades of covering wars with mind and limb intact is a testament to the restorative sanctuary of my family's love.
I was reminded of exactly how lucky I am that day in Genoa.
We were on holiday. As rain hammered down and thunder clapped around us, unimaginable tragedy struck.
Most people have had the experience on vacation when work calls. And most of us have had to say to our partners: "Honey, do you mind if I take the call?" Eyes sometimes roll, children squawk, and the answer comes back "don't they know you are on vacation?"
This day was different.
We were driving from a friend's house in Tuscany to Antibes in France along the spectacular coastal highway. It was cloudy and the road was busy. I'd had a low tire and had to stop for 10 minutes to put air in it.
On the twisty descent in to Genoa the traffic was backed up. Minutes later, we realized why: the bridge we were about to cross had just collapsed.
I called our office in London, told them what I could see: the torrential rain, the lightning, and the very real possibility of multiple casualties.
It wasn't long before they called back, asking me to report. Now I was asking my wife Margaret and my daughter Lowrie not only to put the vacation on hold, but actually come and help me report.
Traffic was in chaos, barely moving. Emergency vehicles were trying to squeeze their way forward. Rescuers were dumping their cars at the curb and dashing through back streets in the pouring rain.
I always try to be ready for breaking news. I had several phones, cables, connectors, adapters and a microphone. Enough to do a live broadcast, except one thing: enough hands to do it for hours on end.
We left the car and scampered forward to where we could see the collapsed bridge.
My daughter held the phone, lined up the shot and we were streaming live. But we needed to be closer.
"CNN," I said to the policeman at the road block. We looked like anything but professional journalists.
Perhaps it was the cables hanging out of my pockets, or our earnest but desperate demeanor, but he not only took us at our word, but also helped us get as far forward as was safe to go.
My wife chased down every politician and official who came our way, setting up interviews for me, getting quotes -- including the most important quote of the day, from a city official who admitted the bridge was in a poor state of repair.
I should say my wife is a former CNN reporter. We met in the build-up to the first Gulf War in 1991 and married. We drove together into the conflict soon after.
We were setting off down the notorious Scud ally, where coalition forces were blowing up suspect vehicles. Even then I knew I was lucky. It's not your average honeymoon, but then I'd say I don't have an average family.
"My arms are aching ... when are they taking you?" my daughter asked just before the fifth or sixth live shot near the collapsed bridge. She didn't know it at the time, but she took that death-defying drive across the Iraqi desert with us.
"You know what," she said, "I'm glad I'm going to be lawyer ... this is hurting my arms too much."
Her sister, Nicky, who is also a journalist, was watching the whole thing play out live in her newsroom and passing information to us every moment she had a chance.
It really was a family affair.
Over the years I've seen a lot: watched civil wars unfold, seen guns pound, missiles crash, counted the toll countless bullets have taken. In short, I have witnessed more times than I wish to count horrific pain and suffering. And each time I go home, thanks to my family I can shelter from the brutality of what I know.
I am not inured to horror, but I have learned to operate in its shadow.
On that day in Genoa, my family stepped up to help. In doing so, though, I put them in a place I ought not have.
No one wants to cause loved one's pain, but I did.
We were so close to that bridge. For hours on end my daughter could clearly see the small blue truck that had somehow managed to stop with feet to spare before plunging to calamity below. It was her first time to witness such a tragedy.
This is how she poignantly recorded it on Facebook:
"From that close up, a disaster is much more real than any TV screen could show. The image of a four-lane piece of tarmac sticking out of the ground at an angle is something I see when I close my eyes.
"At least 26 people died today, may they rest in peace. There is no happy message to this, only that life is precious and love one another."
The truck driver had a miraculous escape, but the more we looked, the more we realized how lucky we had been.
Hours earlier, on our journey to Genoa, I'd stopped for 10 minutes to put air in our rental car's tires.
That day I was just doing my job, but my family put more on the line than their hands, heads and hearts, they threw themselves behind me without question.
Undoubtedly, I am the luckiest man I know.
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