A photo of Rachel Lukasik, 11, taken on the day the plane she was flying in crashed in the Little Belt Mountains.
(Photo: Courtesy photo)
Rachel Lukasik sits in the newly opened University Health Care Patient and Family Housing Hotel in Salt Lake City Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014. Lukasik is recovering from burns from an airplane crash. The new lodging accommodations give patients the options of a long-term suite or guest room for them or their family.
Rachel Lukasik sits in the newly opened University Health Care Patient and Family Housing Hotel in Salt Lake City Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014. Lukasik is recovering from burns from an airplane crash. The new lodging accommodations give patients the options of a long-term suite or guest room for them or their family.
(Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
Rachel Lukasik shows her burned hands at the newly opened University Health Care Patient and Family Housing Hotel in Salt Lake City Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014. Lukasik is recovering from burns from an airplane crash. The new lodging accommodations give patients the options of a long-term suite or guest room for them or their family.
(Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
Tuesday was an ordinary day for Rachel Lukasik — the first in a long time.
The sixth-grader from Great Falls hung out with her friends at Sacajawea Elementary School. They laughed and giggled, talked about what had been going on in Mr. Hall’s class and made plans to visit each other over Christmas break.
“I showed up at lunch, and I walked in, and they all gathered around me and everything,” Rachel said excitedly.
It was a pretty typical day for an 11-year-old girl — but a very special one for Rachel. Three months after the airplane crash that nearly took her life, Rachel Lukasik is back at home.
On Sept. 2, Rachel, her grandparents and pilot, Christopher Wilsey, headed out on a routine flight over the Little Belt Mountains. The four-passenger Cessna 177B took off from Great Falls International Airport. The weather was clear with light winds out of the southwest.
According to a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report, just a few minutes into the flight, Wilsey began having problems directing the aircraft. He later told Cascade County deputies that the plane would not climb as they approached a mountain ridge. Wilsey tried to turn the aircraft toward an adjacent valley, but the plane struck the tree tops and crashed to the ground at the edge of the King’s Hill Winter Recreation Area parking lot, roughly a quarter-mile off Highway 89.
“When the plane went down it went down in heavy timber, and due to the crash the doors were lodged shut,” said Rachel’s father, Rod Lukasik. “The wings folded up and dumped fuel into the cockpit of the plane. They were on fire about the time they hit the trees.”
Lukasik said that his stepfather, Bob Majerus, was able to kick out the cockpit windshield, but the plane was already being swept by flames. In the final minutes before it was fully engulfed, Lukasik’s mother, Sue Majerus, pushed her granddaughter out the broken windshield to safety.
Sue Majerus lost her life that day. Her final act was to save her granddaughter.
“My mother unbuckled Rachel from the seat and was handing her through the windshield while the plane was totally engulfed,” Lukasik said.
Rachel did not escape the crash unscathed. She suffered serious burns to her hands and legs, covering roughly 40 percent of her body. Rachel was life-flighted to the University of Utah Hospital Burn Center in Salt Lake City, where she spent 81 days enduring skin grafts and rehabilitative therapy.
Rod Lukasik took nearly three months off from his job with the Great Falls School District to be with his daughter.
“I spent the whole time down there,” he said. “In fact, I slept in her hospital room 78 days.”
Throughout it all, Rachel and her family have been in the prayers and thoughts of many people in Great Falls. The students and teachers at Sacajawea Elementary organized a “Races for Rachel” fundraiser event to help their friend with her medical costs.
“Her whole school sent her get well cards,” Rod Lukasik said. “There was a giant ladybug that they all signed too.”
“Ladybug” is a pet name Rachel has carried with her since her grandfather Lukasik gave it to her as a baby.
“Everybody in the motorcycle club has a road name and Ladybug is her road name,” Rod Lukasik said.
Lukasik is president of the Electric City Chapter of the Hermanos Motorcycle Club. The Great Falls Hermanos have a long history of supporting local charitable causes, and in the weeks following Rachel’s injury, the northcentral Montana motorcycle community came together to raise money in support of her.
“He’s our brother and he’s our friend,” said Tyler “Gandhi” Long about Lukasik and efforts to support his daughter. Long serves as president of a local Banditos Motorcycle Club chapter.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Lukasik said. “I can’t even begin to tell you all the support that we’ve had within the motorcycle community and Great Falls, not to mention my own brothers within the red and gold.”
Initially, the burn specialists at University of Utah Hospital felt confident Rachel would be able to return home much sooner. Rachel and her family hoped to be back in Great Falls by Halloween — and then Thanksgiving. But the slow pace necessary to complete the skin grafting process kept pushing the homecoming date further back.
Finally, on Dec. 2, the doctors gave Rachel the green light to go back home. Her older brother, Ryan Lukasik, who wrestles for the Charles M. Russell High School team, hopped in a car with Bob Majerus and drove all night to get to Salt Lake City to bring Rachel home as soon as possible.
“We weren’t home more than 24 hours and she had to go around the block to visit some of her friends,” Rod Lukasik said.
Rachel still has a long way to go. She undergoes physical therapy three times a day, and will have to return to the University of Utah Hospital Burn Center as she gets older to replace some of her skin grafts. Rachel has not been released to return to school yet, and it will likely take several weeks before she can return full time to Mr. Hall’s class at Sacajawea Elementary.
“We’re trying to get our wheels underneath us,” Lukasik said.
But Rachel “Ladybug” Lukasik’s spirits are good, and she is growing stronger every day.
As she made her way down the hallway at Sacajawea Elementary Tuesday, a classroom of third-graders was the first to spot Rachel and cheer her return. A short time later, the students from Mr. Hall’s sixth grade class entered the school lunch room. There they found Rachel, nervously waiting to see them.
“They circled around her, and she got a good visit from quite a few of them,” Rod Lukasik recalled.
They formed only a small arc of the wide circle of Rachel Lukasik’s friends and family — all of whom wish the very best for her.
How to help
A fund to help offset the costs of Rachel Lukasik’s medical care has been established at the Wells Fargo Bank in Great Falls. Contributions can be made to the Rachel Lukasik Burn Account, C/O Wells Fargo, 1400 3rd St. NW, Great Falls, MT, 59404.
Sources:
http://www.greatfallstribune.com
http://www.ksl.com
http://registry.faa.gov/N34880
NTSB Identification: WPR14FA362
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Tuesday, September 02, 2014 in Neihart, MT
Aircraft: CESSNA 177B, registration: N34880
Injuries: 1 Fatal,3 Serious.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On September 2, 2014, about 1230 mountain daylight time, a Cessna 177B, N34880, impacted terrain about 5 miles southeast of Neihart, Montana. There were four soles on board; the private pilot and two passengers were seriously injured and one passenger was fatally injured. The airplane sustained substantial damage during the accident sequence and subsequent post impact fire. The airplane was registered to and operated by the pilot under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a personal flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight and no flight plan had been filed. The flight originated from Great Falls International Airport (GTF), Great Falls, Montana at about 1200.
The pilot reported to local law enforcement that he was flying in a valley when he observed rising terrain ahead. He attempted to climb over the ridge, but the airplane wouldn't climb. The pilot turned the airplane towards the valley when the airplane struck trees and descended to the ground.
The airplane has been recovered to a secure location for further examination.
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