Reader's Digest New Zealand Feb/ Mar 2026

26 February/March 2026 reader ’ s digest BY Victor Fornari from pulse “How Could I Forget?” After a tragic plane crash, doctor and patient are forever connected T he message came by email on a Friday. “Do you remember me?” wrote the sender. “Do I remember you?” I wrote back. “I think of you often and fondly, although it has been over 25 years since we last spoke, and 34 years since we first met.” Our first meeting: Jan. 25, 1990. It was a drizzly evening that fateful Thursday. I was exercising on my NordicTrack when the phone rang. It was my brother. “I heard that a plane crashed on Long Island,” he said. “Are you all OK?” “We’re fine,” I replied. Resuming my exercise, I turned on the TV. The news was dreadful: Avianca flight 052, a Boeing 707 from Bogota, Colombia, to New York City, had run out of fuel after a failed landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and had crashed on Long Island’s North Shore. Soon the phone rang again. Annoyed, I answered. It was the hospi- tal: They had declared an emergency and wanted me to come in. I’m a child psychiatrist , I thought. What can I do for the crash victims? Without stopping to shower, I changed into my work clothes and told my family that I’d be back shortly. At the hospital, I joined 200 other health-care providers. The emergency roomhad been evacuated; the cafeteria was now a makeshift ER, and elective patients had been sent home to make room for an unknown number of sur- vivors. As a helicopter arrived bearing readersdigest.co.nz 27 Life Well Lived illustration by Francesco Bongiorni LIFE WELL LIVED