The mother of the young girl who survived a Panama plane crash virtually uninjured spoke yesterday of her "miraculous" escape.
Francesca Lewis, 13, was with her best friend Talia Klein and her friend's dad Michael Klein when their light plane crashed heading to a volcano.
Rescuers assumed all would be dead - but amazingly Francesca was found lying under the wing.
Even more amazingly, she appears to have escaped any serious injury from the horrific crash that killed her friend and her dad as well as pilot Edwin Lasso.
Francesca's mum Valerie said it was "kind of miraculous" that her daughter was alive. "She's having tests done at the hospital and so far things seem good, she said.
"We don't know the whole story but she definitely either fell or was ejected from the aircraft.
"So the fact that so far she doesn't seem to have any major damage seems incredible."
Almost as soon as they saw their daughter in Mae Lewis Medical Center in Boquete, Panama, she was able to talk to them. "She has talked to us, yes," her mother said, adding that they have not actually gone into any real detail over her nightmare.
"We haven't really talked about that much - yet."
Klein, a 37-year-old hedge fund manager, was vacationing with the two girls when they took the flight Sunday to photograph a volcano in Chiriqui province, about 285 miles west of Panama City.
Authorities think the small single-engine Cessna ran into bad weather.
Radio contact with the flight was lost about noon Sunday.
Authorities spent the last two days searching the dense jungles and mountainous terrain, but heavy rain in the area had hampered recovery efforts.
Rescuers were stunned when they finally found the girl alive.
Mrs Lewis added: "I believe she was lying down and then they carefully moved her on to a gurney. Then they had to carry her three-and-a-half hours to a helicopter over extremely rugged terrain, in torrential rain."
She says that it seems clear her daughter was hallucinating, whether through shock or "survival mode" because of the extreme conditions she was tuck in. "When they found her she was under the wing - she had been sleeping and she would wake up and think she was in her home, and 'why was there an airplane wing in her home?'.
"So she was delirious, I don't know if she was in and out of this sleep state - or if that was a preservation mode because she was in extreme weather conditions.
"It was very cold, raining very hard, pretty much constantly for two-and-a-half days so I think her body was in survival mode
"We have not yet gotten to talk to the people who actually found her, and we want to do that so that we can here exactly what they found and how they found her.
The Lewises waited almost three days from hearing their daughter's plane had crashed to hearing that she was in fact alive. "It was a nightmare," she said of that wait. "A living nightmare.
"As soon as we got the call we tried to get on the first plane we could and we flew all night and then just spent all our time with the rescue group which was very, very large. "We tried to be as involved as we could."
She says she is amazed at the huge number of people who gave up their Christmas to help them search the remote area "I just want to thank all of the people that cared so much about trying to help us. So many people tried to help - and at great effort, and sacrifice, and through the Christmas holiday.
"I mean the most important family holiday people were giving up that to trudge through the mud and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
We really appreciate everything that was done."
Of her daughter, she said: "She's just a regular 13-year-old healthy girl, having a good time at school, playing sports, doing things with her friends."
But she admits it was bitter-sweet that the joy of having their daughter alive comes at the same time as three people lost their lives. "It's very tragic that the other's didn't survive," she said.
"My heart goes out to everyone. We all have been through tremendous trauma together."
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