Ballard man recalls pulling girl from fiery car and a vision days later

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013277039_rescue28m.html ^

[cycle of discernment]

October 28 2010 Seattle Times

Ballard man recalls pulling girl from fiery car and a vision days later

By Erik Lacitis Seattle Times staff reporter

It would take an unusual man to decide, in a split second after witnessing a car crash, to crawl into the Subaru that had erupted into flames 8 feet high to try to save a little girl and her dad.

He remembers talking to himself as he went into the Subaru:

"Oh, my God, this car is gonna blow up and I'm going to be in it. Well, if does blow up, I guess I'm going straight to heaven because I'm trying to save that little girl."

He did save the 3-year-old, Anna Kotowicz, who suffered a broken arm and some bruising.

Her dad, Andy Kotowicz, 37, who had just picked up his daughter at day care, died at Harborview Medical Center three days later. He had worked for 10 years as a sales and marketing executive at Sub Pop, the Seattle record company.

Days passed, and Johnson went back to his routine.

That is, until Tuesday morning around 6, he says.

"My wife is next to me in bed. She's sleeping. Everything is where it's supposed to be," says Johnson. "Then there is this man standing right by the bed. He says he needs help with a few things. I say, 'OK.'

"Now, I know it's him (Kotowicz) even though the only time I had seen him was at the accident, when he didn't look, you know, normal. He says he wants me to give a message to his wife and to his daughter.

"He also tells me to talk to the people at Sub Pop, he wants to let them know not to be mad at the driver that caused the accident."

[muawiyah]

That's a different philosophy. Mine is that I do normal human things ~ walk along, look at stuff, breathe, react to cries for help, jump when accidents happen and loud noises are made ~ I'm already there.

Having jumped into a fire without the slighest concern just like it was normal as eating a taco I understand that there is ACTION because we are what we are.

Hegelian dialect would dictate some other cause for that ~ like fear of the consequences of not acting, but Hegel was full of B(ean)S.

You find your way on the True Path by living.

[muawiyah]

We'd been draining a small lake at a Boy Scout Camp. Unfortunately the main gate hadn't worked for years because the mechanism had frozen tight with rust. They'd gotten into the practice of putting large boards in the bottom to keep all the water from flowing out.

Fellow went to pull a board out and it came out and the water pressure pinned him to the gate.

He was going to drown in minutes.

I was about 17 and probably quite strong, if only 120 pounds when wet, so I put my shoulder to the rusted shut wheel that would raise the gate, and, lo and behold, turned it like it was nothing and raised that gate freeing the fellow who was trapped ~ and saving his life. He was still caught up in the flow of water and washed down stream.

I ran down there, picked him up, took him to the others to administer CPR, and ran over to my automobile about half a mile away.

I then drove him and a couple of others to the doctor.

Everything was great until the doctor injected a painkiller in the guy's scalp before stitching up a cut he'd gotten. I fainted dead away!

Took me a couple of days to recover from the burn off the adrenalin had generated.

A lesson about saving a life ~ you do what you gotta' do. That's simply what you do.

[mamelukesabre]

You are about as alien as can be to me. So much so that I’m not quite believing you. When I’m compelled to act in an emergency situation I feel immense anxiety that I may be too slow or too late and I move even faster. The urge to move faster has NOTHING to do with eating a taco, buddy. It has everything to do with fear of the consequences of failing.

[Ramius]

I don’t think it’s bravery at all. I think its fear of what it would feel like to NOT crawl into that fire standing there watching two people burn to death.

At the root those are probably the same thing.

[MPJackal]

I know I am being a bit anal, but we are talking Yoda.

[muawiyah]

You may be in the wrong universe. When your own or another live is at stake failure is not an option so why sweat it. Keep your mind on what you're doing.

Here's an example you might relate to. We were on a hike going up a mountain in Alabama when a mean thunderstorm came up. Everybody had a rifle and steel helmet on. We were following a marked trail that had old artillery shellcasings lining both sides.

I didn't even think about running down hill, tossing my rifle one direction, my steel helmet the other, and getting away from those artillery shellcasings!

We had over 30 guys hit by lightning. I wasn't hit but could feel the charge in the area as the electrons rose from the Earth.

I spent that storm in a ditch a good 50 feet below where everybody else ended up.

There was no fear of failure ~ failure wasn't an option ~ only thing going on here is I'd been trained by thunderstorms and tornados to not screw with mother nature ~ just GIT OUT THE WAY.

[Cvengr]

Interesting thing about some of those adrenaline stories, in many cases the superhuman strength violates the laws of physics regarding equal and opposite opposing forces.

For example a guy picks up a 3000lb car to lift it off a victim, yet we don’t find his shoes embedded in the asphalt from the resultant moment and strain rate on the pavement where he was standing.

I suspect there also may be some assistance from guardian angels in the fray. Likewise, just because a spirit shows up, we don’t want to quickly assume its the person who just passed away. It might also be angelic deception from those seeking any avenue to deceive.

What is much more wondrous than our body, is how God has made man in body, soul, and spirit and many of us do not even know what our spiritual gifts really are...

[Hoosier-Daddy]

When you’re gone, you don’t get to come back, but I don’t suppose that rules out visiting...

[redgolum]

Interesting.

[sionnsar]

Thanks to The SISU kid for the ping.

Say WA? Evergreen State ping

Quick link: WA State Board

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Very interesting, but not at all surprising.

Some of the stories I've read have been downright fascinating, it's a subject I think we should embrace rather than fear,there is a difference between ghosts and spirits. BTW, as an aside, in 1978 we went to Jamaica and one day we went horseback riding on the Rose Hall Plantation, I took a lot of photographs, one was the slave quarters, the picture of the slave quarters was in the middle of the roll, you would have to see it to believe it, but I captured spirits in the photo and didn't realize until I scanned the picture recently to send to a friend that there is an Angel in the picture as well. I've heard of people taking photos in grave yards and capturing spirits and such, but this surprised me nonetheless. My husband always pooh-poohed me about it, but the entire picture is very strange the building is almost as if it is double exposed, until you really look closely and then you see the bushes in front of the building are totally normal outside the edges of the building and change at the corners of the building. These things don't frighten me, I know they terrify some people though.

As an aside, a very good friend of ours went to Jamaica on a business trip several years after we were there, she and her boss went to the Plantation to arrange for a group meeting spot there. They were met at the door and given a tour by this woman who showed them upstairs, downstairs, everywhere, and then they thanked her, said they would return to sign the papers the next day and left. The next day a man met them at the door, they said they had talked to this lady the previous day, he looked a little stunned and asked what lady? What did she look like? They described her and said she had shown them around, upstairs and all...... he said no one gets to go upstairs, I think you were met by our resident ghost.. My friend said her boss turned white as a sheet, she thought it very interesting. I have a book we bought when we were in Jamaica on Rose Hall and none of this surprises me.. a lot of stuff took place there.

anyway.....

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

This was an incredible story. I won’t say I had the same experience...but a similiar one minus the vision.

Still wonder once in awhile how that girl turned out.

[Arizona Carolyn]

I don’t understand why anyone would doubt or think this is in any way evil. I’m not a religious scholar, but Jesus Himself appeared in spirit form up to ten times after He ascended. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 15 vs 3-8 speaks of Christ “died for our sins, was buried and was raised on the third day, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles.