Northeast Philly plane crash is deeply personal to former Shriners patients
The extended Shriners family has been deeply impacted by the fatal airplane crash on Roosevelt Mall, writes Aja Beech, who was treated at Philadelphia's Shriner Hospital during her childhood.
The deadly airplane crash near Roosevelt Mall has sent shock waves through Philadelphia, touching the hearts of people and impacting communities beyond the confines of the crash site itself. One of those communities is the international Shriners family.
Immediately after the accident on Friday — which resulted in seven deaths and at least 19 injuries — messages started pouring in from friends asking if I was safe. Although I don’t live near the crash site, I have a deep connection to the area; then as more news became available, I learned that a young patient from Anezeh Shriners México — now identified by the New York Times as 11-year-old Valentina Guzmán Murillo — lost her life in the crash.
Valentina was being treated at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia, which made this tragedy feel personal.
Just a five-minute drive from the crash site is where I spent much of my childhood — at the original Philadelphia Shiners Hospital location at 8400 Roosevelt Blvd. (in 1998 the hospital moved to its current location on the Temple University Health Science Campus). I was treated there for bilateral clubbed feet — a condition that can be debilitating if left untreated in children — from around the time of my birth in 1978 until 1996.
I can walk today because of the care I got at Shriners. Now I serve as a volunteer Alumni Patient Ambassador.
The pain of the loss extends far beyond Philadelphia.
The Shriners are an international group, started by Freemasons in 1870. In 1922, they founded their first hospital in Shreveport, La., focusing on free pediatric orthopedic care to people in need. The hospitals are now known around the world for their excellent medical care. The Philadelphia Shriners is known for its innovations in vertebral body tethering, sports medicine research, and genomics.
In the hours since Shriners shared that a patient and a family member were on the flight, our alumni patient network has been very busy.
The pain of the loss extends far beyond Philadelphia. Shriners alumni from across the country are shaken, gathering virtually to mourn the loss of lives, and to remember their own journeys with Shriners hospitals.
Kalyn Lance was treated at Shriners St. Louis for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis that led to a spinal fusion. She learned about the crash on the Shriners Alumni Facebook page.
“My heart breaks for the community, the families affected by this tragedy, and for the care team at the hospital,” she posted there. ”They pour their hearts and souls into caring for these kids just like they did for us and I’m sure they’re absolutely devastated.”
Lance, like me, thought about the staff at the hospital and on the medical plane because there is such a dynamic relationship between the doctors, nurses, and all staff at Shriners hospitals and the patients and families.
“Shriners has always been a place of hope for me,” she told me.
I also heard from Donnie Person, another Shriners alum, who was treated at Greenville Shriners in South Carolina for cerebral palsy dysplasia. He said news of the plane crash has really impacted him.
“So many of us patients there at Shriners are like family,” he said, “so seeing family, other patients, have to go through such a tragedy affects all of us just as much as losing a close loved one.”
It is deeply personal to us.
The loss of Valentina is the loss of a life full of promise, of a child who had already endured so much yet was still fighting forward.
We know the strength it takes to walk through those hospital doors — a fact the Anezeh Shriners Hospital highlights with what has become its patients’ theme song, “Héroe” — and together, across time zones and geographies, we mourn a future cut short.
Aja Beech is an author and organizer and Shriners Hospital Patient Alumni Ambassador living in Philadelphia.