Only a handful of others have shared the same experiences as George Lamson Jr, who was the sole survivor of a Reno plane crash that killed everyone except him.
Lamson, who was 17 when the passenger jet he was on crashed, killing his father and 69 others in 1985, may have walked away with his life, but he has been haunted by survivor's guilt ever since.
And, with only 25 people alive today who have shared the same experience, Lamson has had trouble finding others who can understand how he is feeling.
'People look at you and think you have a destiny ... that's completely unrealistic,' he told CNN, saying he felt under pressure after the accident to do something with his life.
After nearly three decades of struggling to come to terms with his experience, Lamson has reached out to other sole survivors.
His journey has brought him in contact with Jim Polehinke, the co-pilot of a plane that crashed on take off in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2006; and 14-year-old Bahia Bakari who was found clinging to the wreckage when her plane went down off the coast of Comoros in 2009.
This small band of survivors recalled their accidents and struggle to come to term with events afterwards on CNN documentary Sole Survivor.
While Lamson says he was buoyed by the relief of walking away from a crash and the ensuing media circus that followed, when it ended he was left in a void.
'There's people in all walks of life who suffered loss like I have' Lamson said, but they were not in the limelight. 'When it stopped it left a vacuum. I'd eat a lot, sleep a lot, anything to stop thinking about it.'
It wasn't until the birth of his daughter, Hannah, that he finally felt his life had meaning.
Unlike Lamson who was the focus of intense media scrutiny, Cecelia Chichan, who was four when her whole family were wiped out in a 1987 crash in Detroit, was a teenager before her extended family fully explained what she had been through.
Her parents and brother were among the 154 people killed when the plane went down.
She became known as the 'miracle child' after she was dug out of the burning wreckage by a rescuer who heard her whimper.
Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashed shortly after take-off at an airport in Romulus, Michigan en route to Phoenix, Arizona on August 16, 1987.
It remains one of the deadliest air disasters in U.S. history.
Rescue workers had given up hope of finding anyone alive when they heard Cecelia moaning and trapped under her seat.
It was believed that Cecelia survived the crash because her mother shielded her with her own body. Her mother, Paula, father Michael and brother, David, six were among those killed as the family returned from their vacation.
The four-year-old suffered serious injuries including a fractured skull, broken leg and collarbone and third-degree burns. She underwent four skin grafts for the burns on her arms and legs.
'When I read about [other crashes] I feel inferior,' Cecelia, who has a tattoo of a plane on her wrist said. She has never attended the annual memorial to those who lost their lives, saying: 'I feel like I would get too much attention. I don't want to be in the spotlight.'
There was intense global interest in the little girl, which saw her feature on magazine covers and receive piles of gifts from strangers.
More than 2,000 presents and 30,000 cards were sent to the University of Michigan Medical Center but her guardians asked that they be distributed to local children's hospitals. The family also set up a trust fund after she received more than $150,000 in donations.
Her uncle Franklin Lumpkin and her aunt Rita, her mother's sister, kept her sheltered from the attention once she left hospital after seven weeks of treatment, allowing her to grow up in obscurity in Birmingham, Alabama.
Cecelia, who is now 31 and married, had never spoken publicly but has a small tattoo of an airplane on her left wrist to remind her of a tragedy that she thinks about 'every day'.
Lamson has also stayed away from memorials, saying he felt the relatives of victims would be angry at him for not doing more with his second chance at life.
'Survivor's guilt is a monster. Still not figured out how to absolve myself of that burden,' he told CNN
When he recently traveled to Normandy in France to meet fellow solo survivor Bahia, for the first time he was able to talk to someone who was going through the same emotions.
For Bahia, who after the crash was left clinging to wreckage in the sea for more than nine hours, meeting Lamson helped her open up about the depression she has suffered since.
'I am happy, I don't feel so alone anymore,' she said as the two compared notes on how they have coped with their experience.
Like Bahia, Lamson was a teenager at the time of the crash. He was on his school sports teams and had a promising future ahead in his home town in Minnesota.
On the night of the crash two other passengers on the plane had asked Lamson and his father to change seats just before take off. The family did and, when the plane went down, Lamson was thrown clear of the fiery crash.
Lamson: 'We started falling from the sky and the pilot told us we were going to crash.' He had just seconds to pull his legs up and cover his face before the plane went down.
For Polehinke, who was at the controls of the plane when it crashed on take off, the survivor's guilt is even more intense. He still feels responsible for all his passengers and crew. 'I would have rather died with everyone else,' Polehinke, who was left paralyzed, said.
He has kept cuttings of the pictures and profiles of those on board that day. 'I look at it, not to torture myself but to see what they had done,' he told CNN. 'I don't think there will ever be a time I can forgive myself.'
Each of the survivors are finding their own ways to cope, and nearly all still take flights, but the memories of what they have been through remains.
Friday 10 January 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2536953/People-think-destiny-Sole-survivors-plane-crashes-reveal-struggle-guilt-walking-away-accidents-killed-hundreds.html
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