A Hero Seeks Help to Save His Daughter

More than a decade ago, Capt. Al Haynes was credited with saving 185 lives when he crash-landed a crippled DC-10 in Iowa.

Now he’s trying to save the life of his own daughter.

Laurie Haynes Arguello, 39, needs a bone-marrow transplant because she suffers from aplastic anemia -- a condition in which her bone marrow cannot produce enough white or red blood cells.

Although a donor has been found, Arguello, the mother of a 9-year-old son, needs to raise $156,000 not covered by her insurance for the transplant, plus another $100,000 for follow-up care.

In the two weeks since Arguello, her father and 25 friends began to raise the needed money, they’ve collected more than $30,000 -- much of it from the Airline Pilots Assn. and the Assn. of Flight Attendants.

“My wife died in 1999, my oldest son was killed in a motorcycle crash [in 1997], and now this is coming up with my daughter,” Haynes said. “So we’re having our share of bad luck. But we learned a long time ago that it doesn’t do you any good to cry about it. You just do what you can and deal with what you have.”

His daughter was diagnosed with the rare bone-marrow disorder in December 2001. Chemotherapy reduced her symptoms for a period, but did not cure her, leaving a transplant as her only option.

Haynes was the pilot of United Airlines Flight 232 when one of its engines exploded July 19, 1989, severing hydraulic lines that controlled the aircraft’s flight. The crew used throttles on the two remaining engines to make a crash landing in Sioux City; 185 of the 292 people aboard survived.