Family: Man saved friend by pushing her from plane
(NEWSER) – On Tuesday, a New Orleans family received the confirmation they were dreading: One of two bodies pulled from a plane that went down in Lake Pontchartrain was that of Reginald Hillard Jr., 25.
"They said that he was in the plane. I still didn't believe it," his father tells WWLTV. The family is telling a second story, though: one of heroism. They say Hillard saved the life of his girlfriend — the only one of the three aboard to survive the Saturday night flight — by pushing her from the plane.
The details are a bit fluid: A family member tells WWLTV Hillard unbuckled Brianna Davis' seatbelt and pushed her out after the Cessna entered the water; relatives tell WDSU he pushed her from the plane before it crashed.
Either way, Davis did enter the lake and was retrieved by a passing yacht and taken to the hospital.
The flight, an aerial evening tour of the city, was a birthday surprise Davis arranged for Hillard. WDSU reports the father of three was scared to fly and had never been on a plane, but "he took the challenge," says his cousin. "He's the hero."
WDSU reports the plane went down about half a mile from the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, whose director, Ben Morris, says, "It's a very sad thing because she did tell us that she and her boyfriend were holding hands when she slipped out of the aircraft."
Morris says the plane hit a rainstorm; the pilot, whose body was found still in his seat, did not request any help. (A plane's parachute helped save the life of a former Walmart CEO in 2015.)
This story originally appeared in Newser:
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