One Ordeal After Another As Tot Survives Crash, Surgery
DENVER - Like the proverbial bad penny, Samantha Bahr kept coming back.
The 2-year-old girl from Grand Junction, Colo., lived through a plane crash and 16 hours stranded in a mountain snowbank, then survived delicate throat surgery on Saturday to free a penny.
"That's my little sweetheart," said Samantha Bahr's grandfather, Al Bahr, of Grand Junction.
"After what this little girl's been through, she can stand anything."
"This was an act of God," said the girl's father, Jack Bahr, who also survived the crash.
Samantha Bahr was on her way from Grand Junction to Denver Thursday night for the throat surgery when the airplane she was aboard crashed in soupy fog and snow just southwest of Glenwood Springs, Colo.
About 16 hours later, the little girl and the four others on the plane were found by a search team.
Later that night, Samantha was flown to a Denver hospital and on Saturday, the coin was removed in a two-hour operation. The girl was listed in fair condition.
"It turned out to be a penny," said Julia Fitz-Randolph, a hospital spokeswoman, "and we're calling it our lucky penny here" at the hospital.
Fitz-Randolph said the child had apparently swallowed the coin, which was lodged near her trachea. Doctors left a small hole where the coin had been lodged, and the girl will be kept at the hospital for five to seven days to make sure the hole heals properly.
Four other people survived the crash, including the girl's father, who was taken to a Grand Junction hospital with broken bones in his face and a shattered shoulder.
The girl's mother, Patty Bahr, was described by family members as overjoyed, relieved and exhausted after believing her family might have been lost.
"She just put her faith in God, that's all she told me," Jack Bahr said from his hospital bed.
"You can't believe what we're going through," said Al Bahr, the grandfather. "It's just out of this world, all the miracles."
Al Bahr said he had received 500 phone calls from friends and strangers wishing his family the best and congratulating them on their good luck.
He said he and his wife had to fight to keep the faith when they heard that the plane had disappeared.
"We were talking and she said, `Well, it's been so long that they've been up there in that snowbank.'
She said, `What are the chances they'll be found?' And she just broke down."
Al Bahr became emotional remembering the moment. "I said, `Hey, lady, they're gonna walk away from it.' That's exactly what I said to her."
The others on the plane were pilot Rick Fowler; nurse Teresa Bagshaw; and paramedic Brad Brown.