Intersections

See Bad Saturday in Paradise.

I've always been fascinated by Six Degrees of Separation and similar theories about coincidences, parallels and intersections. I never expected to really know what happened in the parasailing fatality last Saturday. I wonder what the chances were that I would sit beside an eyewitness on Monday night's flight to Minnesota?

We drove to Tampa International in a rainstorm so heavy that we couldn't see the water driving across the Howard Frankland Bridge. I breezed through security with a TSA pre-check boarding pass and got to the gate about two hours before the scheduled departure time. Because of storms all over the east coast, many flights were delayed so seating was limited in almost every boarding area.

By the time our plane left the gate, we were already an hour behind schedule. I was tired and so were my seatmates, a young mom and her precocious almost-8-year-old daughter. Their lively conversation entertained and distracted me, so I didn't even think about the long Tuesday ahead.

Even though it was getting late, I decided to have a drink and persuaded my neighbor to have one too. We started talking. Despite the difference in our ages, KP and I were very compatible and each of us managed to tell a condensed version of her life story.

I learned that KP been on the beach last Saturday morning when the parasail operator drowned. Her friend, KK, a Minnesota nurse, rushed to the assistance of the unconscious "Captain Tom", Thomas Howell of Gulfport. KK slipped and cut her leg on the exposed propeller; she was the second person I saw in one of the ambulances on Saturday, with an injury that required 25 stitches. The 16-year-old parasailer was not injured.

Because of the fatal outcome, I'd decided not to publish my pictures of the events following the incident, photographed from the our balcony several hundreds away. However, under the circumstances, I was happy to share them with KP. Because of her, I'll always feel connected to Captain Tom and the courageous KK.