Reporter-News Archives

Friday, February 20, 1998

Scene like one from movie to rescuer

By RICHARD HORN / Abilene Reporter-News

To Tom Beverly, it was like the scene from the movie "Red Dawn," where Cuban and Soviet paratroopers invade a small town to launch World War III.

Imagine his relief when it turned out those were Texas bomber crew members who parachuted near his mother's home in peaceful Western Kentucky.

But relief turned to quick thinking, and within minutes Beverly's mother spotted a missing crew member's parachute tangled in the thick woods by her house.

A rescue team then quickly brought medical care to the most seriously injured of the crew members, believed to be First Lt. Bert G. Winslow, Beverly said in a phone interview Thursday.

"It was quite an afternoon," he said. "All this happened within an hour. We're just glad everyone seems to be all right."

Beverly was visiting his mother near Mexico, Ky., around 1:15 p.m. He drove about two miles and came up on a friend's car stopped in the middle of the road.

Two men in military flight suits were leaning over the car, talking to his friend, Bruce Conner.

"I pulled up and said, 'What's up Bruce?' and he told me, 'These two men just jumped out of an airplane!' And I said, 'Ah, bull!'"

Beverly jumped out of his truck, he said, to get a better look.

"The two men were like wide-eyed, standing, looking around," he said. "I looked at their uniforms and said, 'Are these guys Americans, or what the hell?'"

They identified themselves as U.S. Air Force and told Beverly and Conner their aircraft filled with smoke and "went into chaos" and they had to bail out, Beverly said. Two more men were on the ground but were missing, they reported.

Beverly ran to a nearby house and called 911, he said, then called his mother to tell her what happened. He also told her two men were still missing.

"She told me, 'Well, there's a parachute hanging up here at Uncle Bud's -- there's a tree with something hanging,' " Beverly said. "I rush over there and my cousin's standing over this guy, his chute still hanging from a tree."

The injured crewman had a cut on his head and was incoherent, Beverly said.

"He was kind of babbling and calling out flight commands, something we couldn't really understand," he said.

A rescue squad was already on the way, and all four crew members were reported in good condition Thursday.

But the incident is still the talk of Western Kentucky, Beverly said, though everyone is relieved the crew members are safe.

"We did all we could," he said. "They landed in some pretty wooly country."