Lazerdog's post struck a chord with me. About 12 years ago I witnessed a fully-loaded C172 stall and crash after take-off. I've described some of the circumstances in an earlier PPRuNe post but the thing that stays with me is the terrible 'whump' as the aircraft hit the ground.
One of the hardest things at the time was needing to break through the optimism bias of many people. The aircraft was almost below a tree-line at the the time and, while I was quite sure what I'd seen and heard, I was surprised at the push-back by the local club management. Mercifully, it was all instantaneous and, in retrospect, a short delay in locating the crash was irrelevant. But if you find yourself in this position, you may find you have to thump the table hard to get some action. One of the accident investigators later told me that this is a very common observation.
As Lazerdog hints the effect on witnesses, while trivial compared to that on the occupants and their families, does linger a bit. I was grumpy for six months or so after the crash mainly, I think, because the accident was avoidable and because it was a hard to watch the world (including pilots) be cursorily dismissive of an accident where 4 people died.
Interestingly enough, while it made me consider carefully relevant factors such as take off configuration, apparent slip and skid with a strong wind near the ground, etc it never affected my desire to fly. Indeed, as in so many other trials we navigate, I suspect the joy we pilots get from flying is a powerful recovery aid.