4 . “Mayday! We got Mayday!” Frank Pisano screamed over the micro-phone to the air control tower at John Wayne Airport last June. One of the two engines on his 1975 Cessna had failed, and he was now on a collision course with one of the busiest highways in America—Interstate 405, just south of Los Angeles—and there was no stopping it.

Driving south on the 405, near the airport’s runway, was John Meffert. A fire department captain, Meffert, 47, was heading home from his shift. Then a low-flying plane caught his eye. After he took a second glance, a thought crossed his mind: “This plane’s going to hit me,” Meffert told Fox 8.

He was right. The plane knocked into the center highway, popped up a few feet, and then hit the front of Meffert’s SUV. It finally stopped after hitting the divider on the southbound side. Meffert pulled over. He was unhurt, so he turned his attention to the plane. He ran toward the smoke billowing from it—and then he saw Frank’s wife, Janan Pisano, pop her head up on the passenger side.

By the time Meffert reached the aircraft, part of the fuselage (机身) was on fire and Janan, who was covered in blood, was on the wing trying to pull her husband from the wreck. Meffert, afraid the plane would explode, guided her to safety behind it. At this point, traffic had come to a stop, and two nurses jumped out of their cars to help lead Janan farther away as Meffert ran back for the pilot.

“I’m going to get you out,” Meffert said as he positioned himself under the pilot’s arms and carefully lifted him from the seat. He dragged the pilot off the wing and carried him to the side of the freeway to safety, where they watched flames swallow the plane.

Remarkably, Meffert’s car was the only one hit by the plane. Had Meffert been a second or two faster, Frank told the Orange County Register, the left propeller (螺旋桨) would have torn the top off his SUV and killed him.

“I play all the what-ifs—going slower, going faster. It could have been in a very different situation,” Meffert told Fox 8. “We just had a lot of angels.”

7 . Standing on the edge of the plane, my tandem skydiving (双人跳伞) instructor, Bill, asked “Do you have any last words?” “Yes,” I said, joking. “I hope my parachute opens.”

I’d never felt more alive as Bill and I stepped out and started our freefall. Those first few seconds were amazing. As we reached 4,000 feet, I felt a parachute open above us. This, I was told , would slow us down for a smooth descent (下降). So why were we still traveling so fast? I looked up: The parachute was flopping unopened in the wind. I started to freak out. I could hear Bill swearing as he tried to fix whatever had gone wrong. Seconds passed, which felt like forever, until finally our emergency parachute opened. Except it got caught in the first one, making both parachutes useless. I asked Bill, “Are we going to die?” He said he didn’t know. At that moment, I just felt guilty. I’d brought my family along for the day. I’d invited them along to watch me die.

We hit the ground. I was immediately breathless, and an unimaginable pain shot up my back as we bounced into a lake on a golf course. Gathering all my strength, I turned to face Bill. He started screaming. We were found by some golfers. My mother and sister cried uncontrollably as Bill was put into a helicopter, and I was placed into an ambulance. The next four or five months were intense. I had broken my back. After being discharged (出院) from the hospital, I locked myself in my bedroom and took painkillers. I became terrified of the outside world.

After years of therapy(治疗) and hard work, the deep physical and mental pain is healing. I heard that Bill made a full recovery and returned to skydiving. I was always terrified of being myself and doing the things I wanted. Now I’ve learned that I need to be fearless. There’s nothing like falling from 15,000 feet without a parachute and surviving to force you to make the most of every day.