A plane hit her car, killing her little boy
Survivor says if she ‘can get through it, you can pull through it.’
PEMBROKE PINES — Megan Bishop was driving home from work last year when — seemingly out of nowhere — a plane fell from the sky and hit her car, killing three people, including her 4-year-old son.
It was the unthinkable, and yet South Florida again saw a similar crash this past weekend: This time, a small plane crashed into the Haulover Inlet Bridge in Miami, striking an SUV with a mom and her little kids inside.
On Thursday, Bishop, 36, of Cooper City, shared her story of perseverance in the face of tragedy. She saw the news of Saturday’s crash in Miami and was relieved to learn the mom and her two toddlers were OK.
Bishop was so affected by her own experience in Pembroke Pines last year, that she hopes the family in Miami will recuperate.
“My heart just goes out to that family,” Bishop told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday. “I know our outcomes are completely different, but we can still relate.
“And even though my ending is different from theirs, it’s still traumatic and so I just ... I pray every night that they’re finding some type of peace in knowing that things will be OK,” she said. “If I can get through it, you can pull through it, too.”
The pilot in the Miami plane crash, Narciso Torres, and the flyers in the Pembroke Pines crash, Yaacov Nahom and Grant Hustad, died.
Bishop spoke at an event at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood, where she was treated and where her 4-year-old son, Taylor Bishop, was taken after that
March 2021 crash.
“I just want to thank everyone on the staff here for doing this,” Bishop cheerfully said at the lectern.
“Really, there would be no ‘Survivors Day’ without you guys. And just remember to always cherish your loved ones,” she said, pausing to cry. “Because life happens quick, and I’m so fortunate to be here and now I have extended family, so thank you so much.”
The event, hosted by the hospital, had two other victims of traumatic accidents speak, as about 10 other survivors and the paramedics who treated them were honored Thursday.
Some of the testimonies were so moving, even doctors, nurses and paramedics — accustomed to seeing and treating victims of traumatic incidents — wiped tears and were heard saying things like, “oh my God,” at various times during survivors’ speeches.
Dr. Niqui Kiffin is a trauma surgeon and chief of general surgery at Memorial Hospital. She treated Megan Bishop the day she was brought in and remembers the day “vividly.”
“We were told we were bringing in a plane crash, so automatically when you hear that, we assumed that there would be no survivors and she came in with herself and her son and unfortunately her son was brought in in cardiac arrest from the severity of his injuries,” Kiffin told the Sun Sentinel.
“It was a very, very difficult day,” she continued. “The pediatric team worked on her son for some time and were unable to resuscitate him and obviously for herself and her family and everybody, it was just catastrophic to lose a child. ... A very hard day, to the point where they brought in a psychiatrist to talk to everyone.”
Trauma doctors often form a “shell” around themselves to shield their mental and emotional well-being
when they’re unable to save someone, Kiffin said.
“The thought of something like that, especially such an innocent act, she was just driving down the road,” Kiffin said. “She was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it could have happened to anybody. And to lose your child, in that case, all of our shells were gone. People were crying.”
“I could barely look her in the eye that day, to be perfectly honest. But she and her family were unbelievably grateful, which is way more than I could say, had it been myself,” Kiffin said.