“It’s a life before the disaster and after the disaster”. says Nicole Adams (48). “Before the disaster it was brash. After that it was worrying about how things will go on. I am still working on it every day.”
Nicole Adams from Tilburg is one of the seven survivors of the Hercules disaster of July 15, 1996. Something went wrong just after 6 p.m. that evening. When the transport plane with 41 people on board landed, a flock of starlings flew into the engines. The plane crashed. Almost everyone survived the first blow. But after the crash, fire broke out.
Aid workers did not know that in addition to the crew of four, there were also 37 musicians from the Royal Netherlands Army brass band on board. They were in the cargo hold. The fire brigade started with extinguishing instead of rescue work. The soldiers in the transport plane tried in vain to open the emergency exit. It was not until twenty minutes after the crash that members of the brass band were discovered. 34 people died, mostly from suffocation.
“I don’t remember anything about the accident itself. I just remember that the pilot threw a jacket over me. That protected me. He didn’t survive it himself,” Adams tells us. Broadcasting Brabant. She suffered severe burns to her back, arm and lungs. “While I was in the hospital, I went into cardiac arrest and my brain was damaged. I was in quite critical condition.”
“My parents had come to Eindhoven and were told by the Ministry of Defense that I had died. A day after they heard that I was still alive. I had been switched with someone else. They thought for a day that I was no longer there. hell,” she continues.
I play saxophone at an amateur level
Fortunately, that misunderstanding was quickly resolved. But Adam’s life has changed forever. She was 23 years old when she returned from a merry concert tour to Italy on July 15, 1996. She played saxophone, third year student at the conservatory in Tilburg. “I got a 9.5 for my transition exam,” she says. After the disaster, she had to relearn everything. “I couldn’t do anything anymore. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t say anything. I’m still rehabilitating. I don’t speak well enough yet. I can only play the saxophone at an amateur level. You have to find a way to join this to go.”
“It’s not just 25 years of misery. Nice things have also happened. It took a long time before I could open up to love again. I’ve been in a relationship for seven years,” said Adams.
Add wine
Next Thursday she will go to the annual commemoration at the monument in Eindhoven. With wreath laying, speeches and a musical tribute to the victims. She is glad she survived. “It could have turned out differently, but I don’t think about that every day anymore. Then you go crazy,” says Adams. “I always want to end it on July 15 with a dinner. With a glass of wine. Celebrating life. I think that’s important.”
–
