Thankful People: Pilot's recovery after crash exceeds doctors' hopes

In March, Brent Hamilton thought life was almost too good. He and his brother ran the family business, and his wife had just announced she was pregnant with the couple's first child, due in November.

In April, Brent and his father, Buster Hamilton -- both pilots for the family-owned agricultural spraying company -- collided in midair while spraying crops near Marsten, Mo.

Brent, 36, was flying an 802A Air Tractor, the world's largest single engine aircraft with an 800-gallon hopper. Brent pilots the planes while his brother Cory, 31, manages their business, Hamilton Flying Services LLC.

Brent's chemical tank was empty, and he was returning to the airport.

Buster had just filled the 500-gallon hopper of his 502B Air Tractor with chemicals and was taking off.

"You're always aware. Looking all the time," said Buster, talking about a pilot's responsibility to keep a sharp lookout. "Old fighter pilots claim your head has to always be on swivel."

That is probably what saved them both.

"I was looking around and saw something in front of me, same height, head on, right at me," Buster said. "I realized what it was and pulled up."

The report from the National Transportation Safety Board indicated the spray boom of Buster's plane hit the windshield on Brent's plane.

Brent went down.

Buster was able to circle the airport and land. He saw his son's plane crash over a ditch on the eastern side of I-55.

"That can't be good," he said to himself.

Brent's plane had cleared a 5-foot fence before hitting the ground where it traveled about 150 feet before coming to rest straddling a ditch.

Cory Hamilton saw his father circling the airport.

"The plane was smoking, and I saw parts of the plane coming loose and falling off," he said.

He saw that the one leg of his landing gears was gone, something his father could not know. Buster would have to crash land.

Cory and Dustin Skinner, an employee, drove out on the tarmac.

Buster landed, but as he slowed, the plane tipped and started spinning and bouncing. After he got out of the smoking plane, he was stunned, fearing the worst for Brent but uninjured.

Cory and Dustin then drove to the crash site, where a crowd had gathered around the smoking plane. The crowd was throwing dirt to keep the fire from fully igniting.

Cory saw his brother moving inside the plane. He, Dustin and a volunteer firefighter went down to help Brent.

Cory could hear his brother yelling "Help me! Help me!"

Because the plane stopped over a ditch, Cory had no place to stand to help him out of the aircraft. He jumped onto the wing and leaned into the cockpit to pull his brother out of the plane. The three men moved Brent farther and farther from the plane, which was by then on fire.

Brent was taken to Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, where he was stabilized. After 36 hours, he was transferred to an intensive care unit at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

There were too many surgeries to count. There were no fractures in his head, although several lacerations resulted in numerous staples. He said he had rods and pins everywhere. His left heel was crushed. His right leg was broken. His left hip socket was broken. He suffered an open-book fracture, where his pelvis was broken in two. His right shoulder blade was broken, and both hands were smashed. There was a deep cut on his neck that barely missed his carotid artery and he had a 4-inch gash on his backside.

"Barnes put Humpty Dumpty back together again," said Brent, who now walks and moves without difficulty.

"Any one of his injuries, by themselves, wouldn't be life-threatening," said Sherry Hamilton, Buster's wife. But the doctors told them the next 48 hours would tell. Sherry thought of Brent's wife, Lesli, and the new baby.

"It was not very good for a while there," Buster said. "But, I couldn't show it to anyone."

Buster had to be strong.

He shakes his head quietly when he recalls how his son looked in the hospital. He knows how bad it could have been.

"Wasn't our day. Our names weren't in the book," he said.

After surgeries and rehabilitation in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Brent was released from the hospital mid-July, roughly three months after the crash.

Five weeks ago, doctors removed the rod from his pelvis.

"I can do anything I want to do," Brent said.

His recovery has exceeded all the doctors' expectations. Although it will be two years before he is considered 100 percent, he has been released to take his pilot's physical in January. Once he passes that, he will be allowed to fly solo.

"I have a wife, a kid. God didn't want me to die that day," Brent said. "I've got stuff to do."

He said he thinks he had the easy part. The people who visited him had it much harder. He just had to lay there. Everyone else had to see him and the results of the accident -- his tubes and staples and casts, the bruising and swelling.

"It's not just about you," he said. "It's about people around you that care about you."

Cory, after hearing that Brent would be OK, went back to work to keep the business going.

"What are you going to do?" Cory said. "You get something like this to deal with and you pick yourself up by your bootstraps and keep doing what you need to do."

Submitted photo Emersen Hamilton

Back at the office, Cory found two other planes and temporary pilots to keep things going while Brent recovered. His efforts ensured they both kept their mortgage payments up and that there was a business waiting when Brent was able to return -- something neither of them ever doubted he would do.

"Don't give up," Brent said. "On hope or on yourself."

On Nov. 14, Brent and Lesli welcomed their son, Emersen Edward Hamilton. He shares a birthday with Uncle Cory.

"Everyone is still here," Buster said, "plus one."