Angels in the alfalfa field; a clue to a higher power? -article by Thomas Ropp

Angels in the alfalfa field: A clue to a higher power?

At America West Airlines, flight attendant Cathy Sue Sagerser is known as the Angel Lady because of her angelic smile and a love for the angel-wing pins she hands out to passengers.

Five years ago on New Year’s Eve, Cathy Sue and her husband, Jim, a pilot for America West, were flying above Chandler in Jim’s self-built, two-passenger Rodaway Exec 90 helicopter. Jim was instructing Cathy so she could get her license. They had been doing a series of maneuvers when the cockpit began to fill with smoke.

“I immediately relinquished control to Jim,” Cathy Sue said. Despite the choking smoke and poor visibility, Jim managed to land the copter in a wet alfalfa field five miles southeast of Chandler Municipal Airport. Unfortunately, the copter landed in mud and rolled over. The Sagersers were trapped inside, and a fire broke out below a hand control.

“Everything happened in slow motion,” Cathy Sue said. “Jim told me to run for it because he thought it was going to blowup. He was caught in his seatbelt. But I wouldn’t leave him. Then this comforting, peaceful feeling came over us.”

A moment later, Cathy Sue said, she and Jim were standing on the other side of the cockpit, outside the burning helicopter.

“We still don’t know how we got there,” she said. “Somehow, we were lifted right through the windshield.”

They ran 50 feet, and the copter burst into flames.

“I wasn’t sure we were alive,” Cathy sue said. “I asked Jim if he thought we were dead. He said if we could walk through closed doors we’d know.

Remarkably, Jim suffered only a minor burn on his arm. Cathy Sue broke a nail. There wasn’t anything left of Jim’s helicopter except a hunk of windshield that Cathy Sue found by her feet when the Sagersers turned to watch the fire. The couple still have that piece of windshield. Its shape, they believe, may hold a clue to their survival. Like her pins, the windshield fragment was shaped and molded like an angel’s wing.