FREMONT, Neb. -- Scenes from Zachariah Petersen's life played in his mind as the helicopter plunged to the ground.
His wedding day, the births of his children, the first wrestling match he won.
"I wished I could have kissed my kids, hugged them again. Wished I could tell them I love them, one last time," he recalled.
The ground was rapidly getting closer.
Then everything went black.
Three months later, he was sitting in the kitchen at his mom and stepdad's home in Fremont, Neb. Petersen, 24, is in a wheelchair, but he anticipates being able to walk again.
He has another goal. He wants to become a public speaker, sharing what he knows is a miracle and a second chance from God.
"God made me remember it for a reason, I believe," he said of the crash, noting some others who've had wrecks have no memory of them.
He remembers.
Petersen and a friend went to the Backwoods Music Festival at Mulberry Mountain near Ozark on June 2. He signed up for an early evening, 10-minute helicopter sightseeing tour of the scenic area.
He climbed aboard with two other passengers -- festival workers Sarah Hill of Austin, Texas, and Marco Ornelas of Mexico -- and longtime pilot Chuck Dixon, who Petersen says was renowned for his flying skills.
"Never once did I fear anything, did I think anything bad was going to happen," Petersen said.
No flight plan was filed, and visibility was 10 miles, according to a preliminary report released Aug. 9 by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The final report will be available in 12 to 24 months, Peter Knudson, a Transportation Safety Board spokesman, said Friday. Reports involving fatalities take longer to complete, he said.
The group was flying over a peak about 500 yards from the landing site.
"That's when the helicopter started chugging like your car does when it runs out of fuel," Petersen said. "The engine cut and we started dropping. We fell approximately 1,000 to 1,200 feet."
The helicopter hit trees and came to rest in rugged, heavily wooded terrain near Cass, according to the board report. The report didn't address the cause of the crash.
Petersen awoke amid the wreckage and saw a cellphone.
"'If I don't get that phone, I'm going to die,'" he recalled thinking.
"I pulled myself out of the wreckage and crawled about 7 or 8 feet. It took so much energy that I passed out with the phone in my hand, and a short time later I started feeling raindrops hitting my face."
Rain fell harder, and Petersen knew he had to protect the phone. He called 911, but the calls dropped.
"I laid there just waiting to die," he said.
Then the phone, which was Hill's, started ringing. One of her friends was calling.
"'Help! Help! Please for the love of God help us,'" Petersen said. "'We crashed. Please help us.'"
The call dropped.
The call gave Petersen hope. He made seven calls to 911. The final one lasted long enough for rescuers to ping his approximate location.
He was the sole survivor.
Petersen went in and out of consciousness. He heard someone call his name.
"I started screaming as loud as I could," he said. "I remember watching these two guys coming over this little bit of a berm and the look of terror on their faces."
They put a tourniquet on his right leg and started an IV. Petersen thought he could walk, but when he lifted his leg his foot dangled like a wet noodle.
A first-responder gave him pain medicine. He began to hallucinate.
"'You might want to hurry up,'" a rescuer heard him say. "'The trees told me I don't have much time left.'"
They carried him for 2½ hours on a backboard to find an opening in the trees. A Black Hawk helicopter airlifted him out. The pilot buzzed the trees to break off branches and make a larger opening.
He remembers the Mennonite volunteers.
"They dove on top of me to protect me from the falling branches," he said. "I could feel the branches hitting them -- to be that selfless."
Petersen was placed in a basket, accompanied by a paramedic.
"When they lift you out like that, you don't go in the helicopter. You stay underneath," he said. "It is terrifying."
They set him down in a field where he was transferred to a medical helicopter and sedated.
"I was just freaking out, because I had just been in one of these and it almost killed me," he said.
His condition was critical.
"Somewhere outside the hospital, they lost me," he said. "When I got to the hospital, I had no pulse and my blood pressure was 40 over zero."
He stayed in a Tulsa hospital until June 26, then went for rehabilitation in Omaha, Neb.
His tibia and fibula in his right lower leg were broken. Petersen said his right hip was shattered and his pelvis snapped in half. His lungs collapsed, three ribs were broken, his spleen ruptured, and he had pneumonia. Shrapnel had gone through his right armpit and pierced his chest cavity.
He underwent more procedures at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Petersen said he'll be able to walk short distances around the house in a year. He said he is amazed by all the miracles.
One volunteer knew the area because he deer-hunted in it. Another worked with a Black Hawk unit for the Arkansas National Guard and called them. If there hadn't been flooding in the area, the Blackhawk wouldn't have been on standby.
"So many things fell in place that you can't chalk it up to luck or just a coincidence," he said. "There's no other way to describe it, besides an act of God."
State Desk on 09/22/2019