Family muddled since plane crash, father testifies

By ANDREA HARTER

LITTLE ROCK — In their Easter dresses, the Manus girls, Emily, 4, and Lauren, 6, met the federal jury Wednesday that will decide how much money they will receive for the mental trauma they sustained as passengers of American Airlines Flight 1420.

Emily wore her blond hair in pigtails. Lauren's dark brown tresses were pulled into a ponytail.

The girls did not speak to the seven-member jury.

They left after being introduced, escorted from the courtroom by their parents, Stephanie and Jimmy Manus of Benton.

Stephanie Manus and the girls are suing for damages they say they received in the June 1, 1999, Little Rock plane crash.

The girls' injuries have been described as psychological, while their mother suffered from knee, back and liver problems in addition to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Wednesday's witnesses before Judge Henry Woods included two other Flight 1420 passengers. Arnold Bowden of Russellville showed the jury where he and his wife, Kathy, exited the plane from their seats in row 20, and approximately where he met up with Stephanie Manus as she screamed for someone to "save my babies."

Bowden testified that the debris in the aisle after the crash was so thick that he lost both of his shoes but he could see Lauren, so he picked her up and carried her to the exit.

Passenger Charlie Fuller, who was at the plane's door, testified that he took Lauren and handed her to another passenger, explaining how Stephanie Manus and Emily came to be separated from Lauren.

The primary passenger to interact with Lauren and protect her from a lightning-and-hail storm that night was Sean McCarron, who will not testify in this trial.

His friends report that he is still too upset to relive the crash publicly.

Jimmy Manus testified that his family has been disordered since the crash, and that while his wife is still a good cook, she is limited in her daily activities because of her knee injury.

He said the couple sought counseling for Lauren after she continued to line up stuffed animals in the living room and fling them around, "playing plane crash," and that Lauren's weight has doubled since the crash.

He said he can't wear T-shirts from his Air Force days any more, because it upsets the girls to see a logo of an airplane.

"If there was a mind-erasing machine and we could move back to where this never happened ... I'd do it in a heartbeat," he said.

Stephanie Manus sobbed throughout her husband's testimony and left the courtroom when he gave details of Lauren's obsessive longing for a doll that burned in the crash.

"I have not been in a plane crash, and I don't fully understand because I was not on the plane," Jimmy Manus said. "There's nothing I can do to make it better. Not one single thing."

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