Helicopter crash - spirits soar

What follows here is a continuation of an earlier story.. republished (and slightly adapted) at readers' and the Cox family request. Please leave comments below.

It was a truly awful few days. Tears continued to well up and flow over. Memories continued to surface. But questions also mounted. Why did this happen? Was someone at fault? Did those four dear people know what was happening? What were their thoughts as the candles of their lives were extinguished? Some would call these morbid reflections. But they are real questions I heard again and again, from loved ones, friends and strangers alike.

In my last entry, I wrote about hearing the tragic news of the helicopter collision. I touched on the possibility that within seconds of losing his precious life in that crash, one of those men showed up in spirit form from the Other Side. I called upon Debra Martin for more answers.

My photographer James Apalategui and I were with Debra when it happened. I have to say she is one of the most gifted psychic mediums I have ever met. I know a great many of you will turn up your noses and say it isn't so. But you haven't done the kind of work I have done. You haven't met Debra, Mary Ann, Rosemary, Steve, John, Sunny or the other mediums I know.

In a session with a medium, the subject or client is usually referred to as a "sitter". That's the person who's come to connect with their deceased loved one. This time the sitter's name was Marita. We'd been successfully communicating with Marita's aunt Alicia. Then the man showed up (previous entry).
A day later I pushed Debra by phone. Can they really show up right away? What do they look like? What did our guy look like? What did he say? Who was it? Where is he now?

Marita and her family are Hispanic. The spirit who showed up was Caucasian. Debra asked the spirit to explain why he was there. "He didn't belong," she said. "It's so hard to explain. It's never happened before where someone appears and it's not for the sitter."

I wanted to know what it looked like as the spirit appeared. Debra said she first sensed a presence. Then she could tell it was male. Then she could tell he was Caucasian. Then she heard him curse.
In her book "Believe Beyond Seeing", Debra describes the passing of a dear friend and his instant transition to spirit form which she alone could see. "They show up immediately," she told me. "Sometimes when it happens suddenly they're a little pissed off at first." She tells me this spirit kept repeating the word shit. "As in, 'Shit, this is so stupid- the way this is happening'.. just, 'shit' over and over again."

I will say right here that Debra never told me the ethereal stranger was in fact one of the four from the crash. And truly, it may not have been one of them. However, the timing, the feeling and the wording lead me to believe it was Scott Bowerbank. I have known Jim Cox since the day he began working at our station, and I don't believe his last word would have been, "Shit". It would have begun with an F. And I love him for that.

I asked Debra what more she could tell me about the encounter. "I looked in your eyes and I was so cold," she said. "I felt so- your feelings, their feelings- I felt like a mess. I was overwhelmed." The spirit didn't stay very long with her. It had probably left her home before we did, and we packed up our gear and hit the road in record time.

I reviewed our videotapes to check on the timing and chronology of the day's events. The instant Debra began to tell Marita about the new person standing nearby, I can see the camera gave a little shake. That was James scooting past to take his phone call outside. I can hear his footsteps running to the front door. "It's a male figure," says Debra on tape. "I just see another figure that's standing here." 29 seconds later James is heard coming back inside with the news.

I contemplated not writing any of this. I feared it may be too soon. I feared negative reaction from readers. But as I've learned, fear is a horrible thing that prevents us from reaching our goals. Jim and Scott, Rick and Craig were not afraid. Had they been afraid of flying, they would not be soaring today.
I think when a death occurs, you begin to think about love. About how much you love those you have in your life. Of course we love our families and our friends, but we can also love co-workers and even strangers.

We just passed the two year anniversary of this terrible accident. And still, tears continue to fall. Memories continue to build. But our friends continue to fly.