And, somehow, still alive.
“She told me that her mom and dad were dead,” Wilkins said of the girl, Sailor Gutzler. “And that she had been in a plane crash.”
The girl’s sister and cousin also died when their Piper PA-34 aircraft went down Friday evening in western Kentucky. Even with the plane upside down, the 7-year-old made it out and trekked three-quarters of a mile in the dark through what Wilkins described as “very, very rough territory,” mired with fallen trees, creeks, ditches and blackberry briars.
Sailor was barefoot except for one sock and was dressed for Florida — shorts, no coat — not for slogging through the January cold of Kentucky. Wilkins got her on his couch and called 911, alerting authorities that a plane had gone down and there was at least one survivor.
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Sailor was released from Lourdes Hospital in Paducah just after 1 a.m. Saturday, state police said.
Thinking about what the 7-year-old went through and what comes next brings tears to Wilkins’ eyes, he said.
“I just feel so sorry for that little girl, I can’t understand it,” Wilkins said. “I just can’t imagine (going through) that, for someone that young.”
I was the sole survivor: 4 stories of plane crash survival
CNN’s Carma Hassan, Chandler Friedman, Ed Payne, Dave Alsup, Joe Sutton and Josh Levs contributed to this report.
