8-Year-Old Made Her Stay Awake Until Rescue : Daughter Kept Me Alive--JAL Survivor

A woman who survived the Japan Air Lines crash in which 520 people perished said her 8-year-old daughter shouted at her, urging her to stay awake and live through the long night in the wreckage.

Hiroko Yoshizaki, 35, said that after the crash she was on the edge of consciousness because of pain when her daughter, Mikiko, shouted: “Don’t go to sleep mother! Stay awake or you’ll die! I’m hungry, mother!”

The woman gave the account from a hospital bed to her mother, Matsue Hara, who provided it to reporters today in a telephone interview.

Hiroko Yoshizaki and Mikiko were among the four survivors of the Aug. 12 crash that was the worst single-plane disaster in aviation history. Yoshizaki’s husband and their other two children died in the crash.

Yoshizaki’s account of what happened aboard the jetliner basically matched those of two other survivors, off-duty stewardess Yumi Ochiai, 26, and 12-year-old Keiko Kawakami, who talked to hospital officials in videotaped interviews that were supplied to the news media.

The four survivors of the crash all were seated in the rear of the plane.

As relayed by her mother, Yoshizaki said the problem started with a “big bang,” oxygen masks came down and some passengers fainted. She said many people panicked as the plane pitched wildly. She reported that after about half an hour there was a shock and she lost consciousness.

When she regained consciousness, Yoshizaki said she touched her husband’s hands. They were cold and she realized he was dead.

She then reached out for her 7-year-old daughter, Yukari, and found she was cold too. She couldn’t find her son. Then she heard Mikiko shouting at her to stay awake.

Mikiko, trapped in her seat with her seat belt fastened, continued to talk through the night to keep her mother awake.

In the morning, about 16 hours after the crash, rescue workers found the survivors and evacuated them by helicopter.

“It was just like before the crash. I didn’t like it,” she said of the helicopter flight to the hospital.