Anyone recognise this accident? Or is it made up?
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From: South of UK
Anyone recognise this accident? Or is it made up?
From an article in the Daily Telegraph today. I can spot about 10 issues that don't make sense and I don't recognise the description.
"On the day of the crash, weather conditions were ideal: temperature 17C, SE wind at six knots and no cloud cover. As we hear from the crew every time we get on a plane, safety is paramount, and it was chilling to read the catastrophic error summed up in the report with the modest phrase inadequate pre-flight engine inspection. Pilot error had been excluded as a causal factor. The legal firm representing three survivors of a helicopter crash had instructed me to assess its impact on their psychological health. The air accident report stated that the helicopter’s engine had cut out about an hour into the flight. The black box later confirmed that the pilot and co-pilot had identified a field a short distance away for an emergency landing, but they were losing altitude too fast. Instead, they smashed into the side of a hill. Four tons of metal met granite, the cockpit splitting from the passenger cabin on impact. The report described how the tail rotor sheared off, with the acute tilt causing passenger D (female, 47) to be propelled through the open door into the rotor blades, resulting in decapitation and dismemberment. The pilot and co-pilot (males, 41 and 32) were killed on impact, their bodies crushed inside the cockpit. Passengers A, B and C (female, 29; males, 47 and 24) were thrown clear when the rest of the helicopter tumbled down to the foot of the slope. To my astonishment, the accident investigators reported that all three of them sustained only minor bodily injuries. Nothing was said about any psychological injuries. That was going to be up to me."
"On the day of the crash, weather conditions were ideal: temperature 17C, SE wind at six knots and no cloud cover. As we hear from the crew every time we get on a plane, safety is paramount, and it was chilling to read the catastrophic error summed up in the report with the modest phrase inadequate pre-flight engine inspection. Pilot error had been excluded as a causal factor. The legal firm representing three survivors of a helicopter crash had instructed me to assess its impact on their psychological health. The air accident report stated that the helicopter’s engine had cut out about an hour into the flight. The black box later confirmed that the pilot and co-pilot had identified a field a short distance away for an emergency landing, but they were losing altitude too fast. Instead, they smashed into the side of a hill. Four tons of metal met granite, the cockpit splitting from the passenger cabin on impact. The report described how the tail rotor sheared off, with the acute tilt causing passenger D (female, 47) to be propelled through the open door into the rotor blades, resulting in decapitation and dismemberment. The pilot and co-pilot (males, 41 and 32) were killed on impact, their bodies crushed inside the cockpit. Passengers A, B and C (female, 29; males, 47 and 24) were thrown clear when the rest of the helicopter tumbled down to the foot of the slope. To my astonishment, the accident investigators reported that all three of them sustained only minor bodily injuries. Nothing was said about any psychological injuries. That was going to be up to me."
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From: Too close to Croydon for comfort
I was reading the article earlier - if it really happened I don't think it was in the UK, certainly ASN has no record of such an accident in the last 30 years or so. The author is a New Zealander but she appears to be UK-based.
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From: South of UK
Chief Bottle Washer
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From: PPRuNe
Life after a helicopter crash: How three survivors dealt with the trauma
In an extract from her new book, psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead recalls three individuals’ contrasting reactions to the same tragic eventMaybe the OP would be good enough to paste the full article?
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From: Florida
On the day of the crash, weather conditions were ideal: temperature 17C, SE wind at six knots and no cloud cover. As we hear from the crew every time we get on a plane, safety is paramount, and it was chilling to read the catastrophic error summed up in the report with the modest phrase inadequate pre-flight engine inspection. Pilot error had been excluded as a causal factor.
The legal firm representing three survivors of a helicopter crash had instructed me to assess its impact on their psychological health. The air accident report stated that the helicopter’s engine had cut out about an hour into the flight. The black box later confirmed that the pilot and co-pilot had identified a field a short distance away for an emergency landing, but they were losing altitude too fast. Instead, they smashed into the side of a hill. Four tons of metal met granite, the cockpit splitting from the passenger cabin on impact. The report described how the tail rotor sheared off, with the acute tilt causing passenger D (female, 47) to be propelled through the open door into the rotor blades, resulting in decapitation and dismemberment.
The pilot and co-pilot (males, 41 and 32) were killed on impact, their bodies crushed inside the cockpit. Passengers A, B and C (female, 29; males, 47 and 24) were thrown clear when the rest of the helicopter tumbled down to the foot of the slope. To my astonishment, the accident investigators reported that all three of them sustained only minor bodily injuries. Nothing was said about any psychological injuries. That was going to be up to me.
Dr Gwen Adshead: ‘Today, there are multiple ways of diagnosing PTSD, but back then our approach was pretty simple’ Credit: Tereza CervenovaAlthough I’d willingly taken this case, I felt slightly nervous. But I was working in a trauma clinic and Wendy*, the solicitor for the three survivors, thought that was important. My forensic experience was also useful because I was familiar with the problem of translating psychological issues into legal concepts.
Wendy suggested that I meet with her clients at their workplace – all three had returned to work since the accident – which might be less stressful for them. “My clients are claiming damages against the parent company behind the helicopter charter firm that owned the helicopter that crashed.” As part of the claim for damages, Wendy went on, passengers A, B and C would need to show that they had suffered some post-traumatic psychological injury, and the evidence for that would come from my assessment.
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“In claims like this, the company usually denies any fault, and the plaintiffs must prove the company’s negligence caused harm to the claimants. The insurance firms these companies use never want to pay out, but the good news in this case is that the company has no choice but to admit liability. So now we just argue about how much the survivors’ compensation should be.”
Our destination was the headquarters and factory site of a large kitchen manufacturer. The room we’d been allocated for the interviews was in a small, prefabricated cabin. Wendy said she’d spoken to all her clients and explained that each would see me for a couple of hours, starting with Lisa* (passenger A), then Martin* (passenger B) and finally Caleb* (passenger C).
Credit: Owen GentI surveyed the drab room. A metal desk and two chairs sat on worn industrial carpet tiles; at least there was a window looking out on to a bit of green space and a few trees. There was a rap on the door, and Wendy ushered in a tall, athletic-looking woman of about my age, dark hair drawn back into a ponytail. “Lisa,” she said, holding her hand out, her eyes meeting mine. Wendy was off, saying, “Back in a couple of hours.” Lisa looked surprised that it might take that long, but she settled easily into her seat, with none of the nerves I might have anticipated.
Could we start by talking a bit about the day of the crash? “Sure,” Lisa said. She’d been the first to arrive at the airfield that morning. She recalled it was a lovely March day, cool but clear. Dev*, her boyfriend, had come to see her off.
I asked how she had come to be in the helicopter in the first place. “It was a prize,” Lisa explained. She worked in the accounts department and the annual company Christmas party always culminated in a charity raffle – “Everyone got tickets.” This year, there were spa days and theatre outings, and four winners would get to take a chartered helicopter flight. “I couldn’t believe I’d won.”
She told me that her colleagues Martin and Terri* had soon joined her by the hangar that morning. Martin was quite forthcoming about his pre-flight nerves but Terri was smiley and excited. Lisa hadn’t known Terri well. “She was older than me, and she was the boss’s PA. She was a good soul, though. Poor woman.” They were about to board when Caleb, who she didn’t know, had arrived. He’d overslept and “almost missed out”. Once the helicopter lifted off, the noise of the engine and the rotor blades was too loud for conversation. The pilot and co-pilot, separated from them by a glass panel, wore headphones and communicated through a crackly speaker to the cabin, pointing out some landmarks along the way. As this was a tour, they flew with an open door. Lisa told me that she remembered seeing the university where Dev worked, and leaned past Terri, who was nearest to the door, to get a photo.
It was when they moved away from the city, about an hour into the flight, that Lisa thought she heard “something funny”; it was probably nothing, she told herself. But Terri leaned in close, shouting, “What was that?” a bit hysterically, as Lisa recalled. Terri’s anxiety was soon mirrored by activity in the cockpit, with a flurry of radio communications and busy hands tapping at the complex instrument panel. I knew from the accident report that the black box recording indicated that the pilot had reported a problem and then confirmed his coordinates to air traffic control and his intent to make an emergency landing. The black box recording ended with “Oh s---”. Nothing more. I would later learn that this is often the last thing pilots say before impact.
All three survivors said their memory of what happened next was blurry. There was a rapid loss of altitude and the helicopter lurched and tilted. Someone screamed. Lisa used an accounting word: Terri was suddenly “subtracted” from their midst. Lisa talked about the “massive bang” of the impact and “tumbling over and over”. In their statements, they’d each described becoming aware of being alive but feeling numb, almost as if they were in a dream, which is typical of the first phase of psychological survival after a traumatic event. Nobody mentioned what they’d seen of Terri’s awful demise.
The accident had happened about a year before, so I knew that the three survivors would have worked through the initial phases of the post-traumatic stress responses that affect most people, such as the intrusive recall of events. It takes time for people to make sense of their experiences, and usually these symptoms resolve over the next six to 12 months. After a year, only a minority may still have the classic indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Today, there are multiple ways of diagnosing PTSD, but back then, our approach was pretty simple. I would begin by giving everyone a form listing a range of symptoms and ask them to tick those they had experienced. I was also on the lookout for other psychological signs of distress, such as relational problems at home and substance misuse.
I asked Lisa to fill in the questionnaire. She began ticking boxes, adding in the comments section how “for weeks” she’d jumped at the sound of aircraft overhead and felt reluctant to leave the house. She slept poorly, “for the first time in my life”, and had “a few” nightmares, although those had stopped. All of this had been resolved over the course of the last year. Her doctor had given her some medication to help her sleep, and she’d had time off work when needed. She’d felt supported by family and friends during that time, and Dev sat with her at night when the nightmares were bad.
“Anything else I can tell you?” Lisa seemed keen to end our interview, glancing at the clock. I explained that it would be helpful to know a little more about her background. She grew up in south London, the eldest of three girls. Her mother and father ran a corner shop; and money was tight. “But we were happy as a family.” She was good at maths, went to university in Birmingham and “there were some decent jobs going in the accounts department here”. I made a note of her positivity, her openness and apparent willingness to engage with my questions.
I needed to explore any history of trauma prior to the accident. As an adult, had she ever had any frightening experiences before the crash, including things like assaults or harassment at work or home? And as a child, had she ever been abused or harmed by anyone? She looked as if I’d asked whether she’d ever had two heads. “God no. My parents weren’t like that. What’s that got to do with the case? Do you put all this into your report?” I told her that was unlikely – without adding that I was more interested in how she talked about her childhood than the actual content of her memories.
It was around the time of this case, while I was still qualifying as a psychotherapist, that I became increasingly interested in how childhood attachment relationships might be protective in terms of surviving trauma. Judging from how she spoke and the content of her memories, I thought Lisa probably had a secure attachment in childhood, which might explain her apparent resilience after this dreadful experience. Only later would I wonder whether she had been a little avoidant, given her brisk manner and, ultimately, how little she gave away.
We were coming to the end of the interview. “I do have just one last question. What was the worst thing about that day?”
“The worst thing?” I had her attention. “Let me think.” Then she said, “I guess it was the silence. After, I mean.” She stared out of the window. “We were there for ages. Hours and hours. As soon as I realised I was alive, I looked around, and Martin was there… right over there.” She gestured towards the window and I felt she was watching a film playing out as she described the memory.
“I crawled over to him, not knowing if he was dead. And then I remember I was so, so glad when he lifted his head and looked at me. I didn’t see anyone else at first. It was just the two of us, breathing, looking at each other, and there was no noise at all.
“Then I saw something in the grass a few feet away. I thought it was a branch or something. Turned out it was…” She swallowed hard. “It was her leg. And then we saw an arm, a bloody stump… and suddenly there was Caleb, running towards us, his face all scratched and bloody, eyes wide, hair sticking up. He looked about five. Threw himself down next to me in the dirt and started to cry, but not making any sound, just these horrid, gasping sobs, his shoulders shaking. After a bit, I reached over and took his hand. And still nobody said a word. No birds sang. There was nothing, just this long, long silence.”
The accident report included an account from first responders, saying that the trio had been found just as she described, huddled together in shock, about 90 minutes after the crash. But in Lisa’s mind, time had stretched and distorted, which is not unusual. “Hours and hours,” Lisa said again. “The silence felt, I don’t know… smothering. But we couldn’t break it. None of us said a word.” She paused, sat up straight and reverted to her previous tone. “That’s it, Doctor. That was the worst part.”
After she left, I had a quick look at the questionnaire she’d filled in, which indicated she was unlikely to meet the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis as it was defined at that time. I thought she was one of the fortunate majority of people who surmount the natural distress that comes with disastrous events. While the helicopter crash and its aftermath were still alive in Lisa’s mind, that did not define her life or stop her from working or relating to others.
Everything about this man seemed slow, from his speech to his gait. We found a bench under one of the chestnut trees outside and sat down. Martin did not make eye contact with me, and looked every one of his 47 years, with deep lines etched around his eyes and mouth. Some reddening and a puffiness about his face hinted that he might be drinking a lot. I was reasonably confident this man was depressed, struggling in a way that Lisa was not.
I carried out much the same interview with him as I had with Lisa, but Martin’s responses were halting, and his voice lacked energy. Born in Bolton, he was the only child of older parents, who divorced when he was in his teens, and he and his mother moved down to the Midlands and he didn’t see his father much after that. Martin married Laura*, a local girl and things had gone well: he spoke warmly of their three children and repeatedly praised his wife. “She’s always been a rock for me, especially since…” He broke off then, as if unwilling to refer to the reason for our meeting. “Since the accident?” I prompted. He glanced up at me. “That’s right.”
Things had already been tough for Martin in the months before the crash. His mum had been diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer and died quite quickly. This hit him hard, and he began worrying about his own health. “I, er, had some tummy troubles,” he said awkwardly. This anxiety got worse, and shortly before the office Christmas party, he’d seen a doctor, who put him on antidepressants.
It was plain he didn’t want to talk about the accident yet, so I decided to return to it later. “How are things at home now?” I asked. Martin swallowed hard. “Um… the house feels small. It’s like I’m trapped in there. I go out a lot, walking around for hours sometimes… In all weathers, at all hours, I just have to escape.” He sighed. “Nothing seems that important now.”
This was the language of clinical depression. I needed to explore some things in his statement, but I thought this might be a big ask today. I asked him the same question I’d asked Lisa: what was the worst thing about the crash that he remembered?
“The worst?” His voice deepened, like he was being dragged down by the weight of the traumatic memory. “I think it was when the engine cut out, and we started to fall, and maybe it happened fast, but to me, it seemed like slow motion, like going down a mineshaft or something, falling, falling and that poor woman…” His voice broke. He was not going to articulate whatever memory had arisen about Terri’s death, but I could feel his tension, a palpable sense of the awful. “It was like I had a cold stone inside me, Doctor – the fear. I was sure this was the end, that I was dead. And it still feels that way now. Even if we were the lucky ones.”
I had to ask the question that psychiatrists must put to anyone who’s depressed: “Martin, do you ever feel so bad you think life’s not worth living?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to them… to the family… not after all this.” I asked him how he coped, and as I’d thought, he’d taken to drinking more than he should. Despite his denial, this man was a genuine suicide risk, I thought.
“Martin, I’m going to see you again another time, all right? That’s enough for today.” He was happy to be released. I would need to call his GP and suggest he might need more vigorous treatment.
Her voice was kind but firm. Caleb shoved the metal sheet aside, and turned to face me. “All right then… let’s get this over with.” His voice was rough and unwelcoming, and I felt uneasy. I would have to try to establish a rapport. “Can we talk here?” I indicated the workbench. “Suit yourself,” he said.
He was in his mid-20s, but it would be easy to mistake him for a secondary-school student playing truant. His jeans sagged below his hip bones, and he was so thin and pale I feared he was malnourished. When he spoke, I glimpsed his missing teeth; there were at least three or four dark gaps.
“What am I meant to say to you then?” he asked abruptly.
I explained my purpose, adding, “I’d just like to ask about how you’ve been since the accident.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Can’t you just put down that I’m feeling like s---? Why do I have to explain anything? They should explain how they let us go up in that chopper.” Caleb kicked the metal on the floor, causing a cymbal shimmer to echo around the open space.
Big, big fear there – and considerable anger, too. I suspected it flared often, probably ignited by almost any interaction; I was just his lightning conductor for the day. I could see how this interview might feel like an intrusive attack at a time when he was feeling vulnerable. “This process is awful, Caleb, I agree. Just say what you can.” He gestured at my notes. “Write this down, Doc. I want the helicopter company to pay up. And maybe” – the sweep of his arm took in the work area around him – “this lot, too. Some raffle prize, right? Company should have vetted them properly.”
Caleb then dismissed the notion of the helicopter having a mechanical failure, saying he knew a thing or two about engines. The problem, in his view, was that the pilot was “crap” and caused the crash because he hadn’t a clue what he was doing. I knew otherwise from the accident report but did not argue.
“Did they tell you I had a breakdown after?” he said suddenly, crossing wiry arms over his chest. I thought for a moment about how to answer. “Wendy mentioned you’d been struggling.” He glared. “Struggling?” His voice was sarcastic. “That what you call it? You can’t imagine. I’m lying there, mouth full of dirt, don’t know if I’m dead or alive, or if this is a bad dream or what, and then I saw it next to me and it…” He stopped again. “Her hand. Nails painted pink and all. Jesus.” His face was reddening, his jaw set.
I decided to move on to what came after the crash, noting that he’d returned to work quite soon after. “I need the job,” he said bitterly. “If I keep getting signed off sick, they’ll fire me. I can tell the company wants to get rid of me anyhow – they all think I should’ve died instead of her.”
His rage and paranoia were growing, pulsing, radiating from his body, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, a sensation I’d learnt to take seriously in my forensic training. I knew I should end the interview immediately. Nothing I could say would make him feel calmer or less afraid.
Just as I was thinking this, he confirmed it. “Shrinks… f---ing shrinks and lawyers!” His eyes were fierce, and flecks of saliva formed at the edge of his lips. “You’re all the same, you lot.” Instinctively, I drew back, and that’s when I saw his discarded hammer lying on the floor. I realised his eyes were on it, too. There was a pregnant pause – then he kicked it, sending it skittering across the floor, shouting, “I’ve had enough!” before stalking off.
Caleb needed urgent help. He presented a risk to himself and others and shouldn’t be in a workplace where many tools could be used as weapons.
The next day, Wendy rang to tell me that he’d been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, detained involuntarily and diagnosed with paranoid psychosis.
Martin’s GP had changed his meds for depression and got him some cognitive behavioural therapy, which had made a big difference. He’d given up his job and he and his family were moving to Kent. I could see he was still a saddened man, much altered by his experience, but I felt heartened that he seemed more engaged in the business of life.
Before I followed up with Caleb, I was able to request and review his GP’s notes and found that he’d been known to the child protection services, and some reports referred to him being taken into care briefly as a boy. I also saw a couple of assessments by child psychiatrists who had seen him years earlier – presumably, the first of his “f---ing shrinks”.
Eventually, I heard from Wendy that Caleb was about to be discharged from the hospital and was ready to meet with me again to complete our assessment. When I arrived at the psychiatric facility, I noticed immediately how his appearance had changed. He’d put on weight – a side effect of the anti-psychosis drugs – and it suited him. His attitude was also entirely different: he welcomed me with a smile and a handshake, and swiftly apologised for his sudden exit from the factory that day. I wasn’t surprised to find him so altered; it’s not unusual for acute psychoses to resolve just as quickly as they start, with medication and appropriate care. None of this meant that Caleb had left the trauma behind; he might just be able to speak about it now.
This time, he seemed more sad than angry, and when I asked him about his worst moment, he spoke again about seeing poor Terri’s severed hand, and how he would never forget it.
He started to tell me a little about his early life. His mother had run away from home when she became pregnant at 16, finding work in a pub in London. She often dated men she met there, he said, adding, “I was scared of them, and of her, too. She’d go on the piss and scream at me… And then her boyfriends beat her up sometimes, in front of me.” They had also beaten him. “See here?” He pointed to the gaps in his teeth. “I’d only just grown in my big teeth when one of them did that.” He ran away from home and ended up in care, until his mother found safe accommodation away from the pub. He did an apprenticeship that would ultimately lead to his job at the kitchen factory. “I was hired just in time to go along to the Christmas raffle, wasn’t I? Lucky me.”
I asked if he thought he was ready to return to work, but he’d decided to follow his doctor’s suggestion to continue with rehabilitation a little longer. I felt I could now give him the PTSD symptom checklist. In the “past” column, he ticked “intrusive images” – that severed hand had been persistent, although it was now largely gone.
“But I’ve got something else that isn’t on your list. I still don’t feel right. I feel like a snail without a shell,” he said. He told me about memories of how his mother would sometimes lock him in his room all day. He was worried that when he left the facility his rage might boil over, at her. I was seeing him as an independent expert, not a therapist, and I had to be careful not to step outside my role. I told him to consider staying at the facility and having more therapy, looking at his childhood fears as well as the crash. I didn’t add that I had plenty of evidence that he had suffered a significant psychological injury because of the accident, affecting his day-to-day functioning, especially his work. I thought that when the court came to allocate damages, Caleb would get more than Martin or Lisa, and I hoped he would use that money to continue his recovery after being discharged. I would highlight his need for long-term therapy in my report.
When I finished my assessments, I sent them to Wendy and my work was submitted into evidence.
These three crash survivors could be considered fortunate, despite their ordeal. As Martin had said, they were the lucky ones. They were alive. But this might be all they had in common; three people could have almost the same traumatic experience but with three very different survival reactions. It was plain that emotional stressors and lack of childhood attachment security are significant risk factors that make a difference in how resilient you might be to major trauma. Lisa seemed the “luckiest” in that regard; that’s why I thought she had suffered but recovered. Today, I know better than to think that trauma stories always end so neatly.
About three years later, I received a call from a psychiatrist in Birmingham who ran a perinatal service looking after new mothers with mental health problems. She told me she was treating Lisa for acute post-partum psychosis.
My colleague knew about the helicopter crash and had gained permission to discuss Lisa’s case. She was very unwell now, ever since the birth of her daughter six months prior. “Severe depression, believing that she and the baby are about to die, hallucinating that their bodies are decomposing. Her husband thought she was going to bury the baby alive.” I struggled to reconcile this presentation with the Lisa I’d met. Something macabre was bursting out of her memory and manifesting as a paranoid belief that both she and her baby were dying or dead.
The legal firm representing three survivors of a helicopter crash had instructed me to assess its impact on their psychological health. The air accident report stated that the helicopter’s engine had cut out about an hour into the flight. The black box later confirmed that the pilot and co-pilot had identified a field a short distance away for an emergency landing, but they were losing altitude too fast. Instead, they smashed into the side of a hill. Four tons of metal met granite, the cockpit splitting from the passenger cabin on impact. The report described how the tail rotor sheared off, with the acute tilt causing passenger D (female, 47) to be propelled through the open door into the rotor blades, resulting in decapitation and dismemberment.
The pilot and co-pilot (males, 41 and 32) were killed on impact, their bodies crushed inside the cockpit. Passengers A, B and C (female, 29; males, 47 and 24) were thrown clear when the rest of the helicopter tumbled down to the foot of the slope. To my astonishment, the accident investigators reported that all three of them sustained only minor bodily injuries. Nothing was said about any psychological injuries. That was going to be up to me.
Dr Gwen Adshead: ‘Today, there are multiple ways of diagnosing PTSD, but back then our approach was pretty simple’ Credit: Tereza CervenovaAlthough I’d willingly taken this case, I felt slightly nervous. But I was working in a trauma clinic and Wendy*, the solicitor for the three survivors, thought that was important. My forensic experience was also useful because I was familiar with the problem of translating psychological issues into legal concepts.Wendy suggested that I meet with her clients at their workplace – all three had returned to work since the accident – which might be less stressful for them. “My clients are claiming damages against the parent company behind the helicopter charter firm that owned the helicopter that crashed.” As part of the claim for damages, Wendy went on, passengers A, B and C would need to show that they had suffered some post-traumatic psychological injury, and the evidence for that would come from my assessment.
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“In claims like this, the company usually denies any fault, and the plaintiffs must prove the company’s negligence caused harm to the claimants. The insurance firms these companies use never want to pay out, but the good news in this case is that the company has no choice but to admit liability. So now we just argue about how much the survivors’ compensation should be.”
Our destination was the headquarters and factory site of a large kitchen manufacturer. The room we’d been allocated for the interviews was in a small, prefabricated cabin. Wendy said she’d spoken to all her clients and explained that each would see me for a couple of hours, starting with Lisa* (passenger A), then Martin* (passenger B) and finally Caleb* (passenger C).
Lisa
Credit: Owen GentI surveyed the drab room. A metal desk and two chairs sat on worn industrial carpet tiles; at least there was a window looking out on to a bit of green space and a few trees. There was a rap on the door, and Wendy ushered in a tall, athletic-looking woman of about my age, dark hair drawn back into a ponytail. “Lisa,” she said, holding her hand out, her eyes meeting mine. Wendy was off, saying, “Back in a couple of hours.” Lisa looked surprised that it might take that long, but she settled easily into her seat, with none of the nerves I might have anticipated.Could we start by talking a bit about the day of the crash? “Sure,” Lisa said. She’d been the first to arrive at the airfield that morning. She recalled it was a lovely March day, cool but clear. Dev*, her boyfriend, had come to see her off.
I asked how she had come to be in the helicopter in the first place. “It was a prize,” Lisa explained. She worked in the accounts department and the annual company Christmas party always culminated in a charity raffle – “Everyone got tickets.” This year, there were spa days and theatre outings, and four winners would get to take a chartered helicopter flight. “I couldn’t believe I’d won.”
She told me that her colleagues Martin and Terri* had soon joined her by the hangar that morning. Martin was quite forthcoming about his pre-flight nerves but Terri was smiley and excited. Lisa hadn’t known Terri well. “She was older than me, and she was the boss’s PA. She was a good soul, though. Poor woman.” They were about to board when Caleb, who she didn’t know, had arrived. He’d overslept and “almost missed out”. Once the helicopter lifted off, the noise of the engine and the rotor blades was too loud for conversation. The pilot and co-pilot, separated from them by a glass panel, wore headphones and communicated through a crackly speaker to the cabin, pointing out some landmarks along the way. As this was a tour, they flew with an open door. Lisa told me that she remembered seeing the university where Dev worked, and leaned past Terri, who was nearest to the door, to get a photo.
It was when they moved away from the city, about an hour into the flight, that Lisa thought she heard “something funny”; it was probably nothing, she told herself. But Terri leaned in close, shouting, “What was that?” a bit hysterically, as Lisa recalled. Terri’s anxiety was soon mirrored by activity in the cockpit, with a flurry of radio communications and busy hands tapping at the complex instrument panel. I knew from the accident report that the black box recording indicated that the pilot had reported a problem and then confirmed his coordinates to air traffic control and his intent to make an emergency landing. The black box recording ended with “Oh s---”. Nothing more. I would later learn that this is often the last thing pilots say before impact.
All three survivors said their memory of what happened next was blurry. There was a rapid loss of altitude and the helicopter lurched and tilted. Someone screamed. Lisa used an accounting word: Terri was suddenly “subtracted” from their midst. Lisa talked about the “massive bang” of the impact and “tumbling over and over”. In their statements, they’d each described becoming aware of being alive but feeling numb, almost as if they were in a dream, which is typical of the first phase of psychological survival after a traumatic event. Nobody mentioned what they’d seen of Terri’s awful demise.
The accident had happened about a year before, so I knew that the three survivors would have worked through the initial phases of the post-traumatic stress responses that affect most people, such as the intrusive recall of events. It takes time for people to make sense of their experiences, and usually these symptoms resolve over the next six to 12 months. After a year, only a minority may still have the classic indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Today, there are multiple ways of diagnosing PTSD, but back then, our approach was pretty simple. I would begin by giving everyone a form listing a range of symptoms and ask them to tick those they had experienced. I was also on the lookout for other psychological signs of distress, such as relational problems at home and substance misuse.
I asked Lisa to fill in the questionnaire. She began ticking boxes, adding in the comments section how “for weeks” she’d jumped at the sound of aircraft overhead and felt reluctant to leave the house. She slept poorly, “for the first time in my life”, and had “a few” nightmares, although those had stopped. All of this had been resolved over the course of the last year. Her doctor had given her some medication to help her sleep, and she’d had time off work when needed. She’d felt supported by family and friends during that time, and Dev sat with her at night when the nightmares were bad.
“Anything else I can tell you?” Lisa seemed keen to end our interview, glancing at the clock. I explained that it would be helpful to know a little more about her background. She grew up in south London, the eldest of three girls. Her mother and father ran a corner shop; and money was tight. “But we were happy as a family.” She was good at maths, went to university in Birmingham and “there were some decent jobs going in the accounts department here”. I made a note of her positivity, her openness and apparent willingness to engage with my questions.
I needed to explore any history of trauma prior to the accident. As an adult, had she ever had any frightening experiences before the crash, including things like assaults or harassment at work or home? And as a child, had she ever been abused or harmed by anyone? She looked as if I’d asked whether she’d ever had two heads. “God no. My parents weren’t like that. What’s that got to do with the case? Do you put all this into your report?” I told her that was unlikely – without adding that I was more interested in how she talked about her childhood than the actual content of her memories.
It was around the time of this case, while I was still qualifying as a psychotherapist, that I became increasingly interested in how childhood attachment relationships might be protective in terms of surviving trauma. Judging from how she spoke and the content of her memories, I thought Lisa probably had a secure attachment in childhood, which might explain her apparent resilience after this dreadful experience. Only later would I wonder whether she had been a little avoidant, given her brisk manner and, ultimately, how little she gave away.
We were coming to the end of the interview. “I do have just one last question. What was the worst thing about that day?”
“The worst thing?” I had her attention. “Let me think.” Then she said, “I guess it was the silence. After, I mean.” She stared out of the window. “We were there for ages. Hours and hours. As soon as I realised I was alive, I looked around, and Martin was there… right over there.” She gestured towards the window and I felt she was watching a film playing out as she described the memory.
“I crawled over to him, not knowing if he was dead. And then I remember I was so, so glad when he lifted his head and looked at me. I didn’t see anyone else at first. It was just the two of us, breathing, looking at each other, and there was no noise at all.
“Then I saw something in the grass a few feet away. I thought it was a branch or something. Turned out it was…” She swallowed hard. “It was her leg. And then we saw an arm, a bloody stump… and suddenly there was Caleb, running towards us, his face all scratched and bloody, eyes wide, hair sticking up. He looked about five. Threw himself down next to me in the dirt and started to cry, but not making any sound, just these horrid, gasping sobs, his shoulders shaking. After a bit, I reached over and took his hand. And still nobody said a word. No birds sang. There was nothing, just this long, long silence.”
The accident report included an account from first responders, saying that the trio had been found just as she described, huddled together in shock, about 90 minutes after the crash. But in Lisa’s mind, time had stretched and distorted, which is not unusual. “Hours and hours,” Lisa said again. “The silence felt, I don’t know… smothering. But we couldn’t break it. None of us said a word.” She paused, sat up straight and reverted to her previous tone. “That’s it, Doctor. That was the worst part.”
After she left, I had a quick look at the questionnaire she’d filled in, which indicated she was unlikely to meet the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis as it was defined at that time. I thought she was one of the fortunate majority of people who surmount the natural distress that comes with disastrous events. While the helicopter crash and its aftermath were still alive in Lisa’s mind, that did not define her life or stop her from working or relating to others.
Martin
Credit: Owen GentSoon Wendy was at the door with a middle-aged man in tow, Martin, who she said was feeling a bit worried about the interview. I tried to meet his eye, but he looked down at his feet. “Do we have to do it here?” His voice was low and shaky. The bare little office suddenly felt crowded with three of us in it; trauma can induce claustrophobia in some people.Everything about this man seemed slow, from his speech to his gait. We found a bench under one of the chestnut trees outside and sat down. Martin did not make eye contact with me, and looked every one of his 47 years, with deep lines etched around his eyes and mouth. Some reddening and a puffiness about his face hinted that he might be drinking a lot. I was reasonably confident this man was depressed, struggling in a way that Lisa was not.
I carried out much the same interview with him as I had with Lisa, but Martin’s responses were halting, and his voice lacked energy. Born in Bolton, he was the only child of older parents, who divorced when he was in his teens, and he and his mother moved down to the Midlands and he didn’t see his father much after that. Martin married Laura*, a local girl and things had gone well: he spoke warmly of their three children and repeatedly praised his wife. “She’s always been a rock for me, especially since…” He broke off then, as if unwilling to refer to the reason for our meeting. “Since the accident?” I prompted. He glanced up at me. “That’s right.”
Things had already been tough for Martin in the months before the crash. His mum had been diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer and died quite quickly. This hit him hard, and he began worrying about his own health. “I, er, had some tummy troubles,” he said awkwardly. This anxiety got worse, and shortly before the office Christmas party, he’d seen a doctor, who put him on antidepressants.
It was plain he didn’t want to talk about the accident yet, so I decided to return to it later. “How are things at home now?” I asked. Martin swallowed hard. “Um… the house feels small. It’s like I’m trapped in there. I go out a lot, walking around for hours sometimes… In all weathers, at all hours, I just have to escape.” He sighed. “Nothing seems that important now.”
This was the language of clinical depression. I needed to explore some things in his statement, but I thought this might be a big ask today. I asked him the same question I’d asked Lisa: what was the worst thing about the crash that he remembered?
“The worst?” His voice deepened, like he was being dragged down by the weight of the traumatic memory. “I think it was when the engine cut out, and we started to fall, and maybe it happened fast, but to me, it seemed like slow motion, like going down a mineshaft or something, falling, falling and that poor woman…” His voice broke. He was not going to articulate whatever memory had arisen about Terri’s death, but I could feel his tension, a palpable sense of the awful. “It was like I had a cold stone inside me, Doctor – the fear. I was sure this was the end, that I was dead. And it still feels that way now. Even if we were the lucky ones.”
I had to ask the question that psychiatrists must put to anyone who’s depressed: “Martin, do you ever feel so bad you think life’s not worth living?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to them… to the family… not after all this.” I asked him how he coped, and as I’d thought, he’d taken to drinking more than he should. Despite his denial, this man was a genuine suicide risk, I thought.
“Martin, I’m going to see you again another time, all right? That’s enough for today.” He was happy to be released. I would need to call his GP and suggest he might need more vigorous treatment.
Caleb
Credit: Owen GentCaleb was in the machine shop on his break, and Wendy had arranged for me to talk with him there since he refused to come and see me in the office. “He’s anxious about this and a bit agitated,” she warned. We found him hammering a metal sheet on a workbench in a deserted warehouse space filled with machine parts. I said hello, but he didn’t acknowledge me. “Caleb, I know this isn’t easy,” Wendy said, “but we just discussed this, and you agreed.”Her voice was kind but firm. Caleb shoved the metal sheet aside, and turned to face me. “All right then… let’s get this over with.” His voice was rough and unwelcoming, and I felt uneasy. I would have to try to establish a rapport. “Can we talk here?” I indicated the workbench. “Suit yourself,” he said.
He was in his mid-20s, but it would be easy to mistake him for a secondary-school student playing truant. His jeans sagged below his hip bones, and he was so thin and pale I feared he was malnourished. When he spoke, I glimpsed his missing teeth; there were at least three or four dark gaps.
“What am I meant to say to you then?” he asked abruptly.
I explained my purpose, adding, “I’d just like to ask about how you’ve been since the accident.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Can’t you just put down that I’m feeling like s---? Why do I have to explain anything? They should explain how they let us go up in that chopper.” Caleb kicked the metal on the floor, causing a cymbal shimmer to echo around the open space.
Big, big fear there – and considerable anger, too. I suspected it flared often, probably ignited by almost any interaction; I was just his lightning conductor for the day. I could see how this interview might feel like an intrusive attack at a time when he was feeling vulnerable. “This process is awful, Caleb, I agree. Just say what you can.” He gestured at my notes. “Write this down, Doc. I want the helicopter company to pay up. And maybe” – the sweep of his arm took in the work area around him – “this lot, too. Some raffle prize, right? Company should have vetted them properly.”
Caleb then dismissed the notion of the helicopter having a mechanical failure, saying he knew a thing or two about engines. The problem, in his view, was that the pilot was “crap” and caused the crash because he hadn’t a clue what he was doing. I knew otherwise from the accident report but did not argue.
“Did they tell you I had a breakdown after?” he said suddenly, crossing wiry arms over his chest. I thought for a moment about how to answer. “Wendy mentioned you’d been struggling.” He glared. “Struggling?” His voice was sarcastic. “That what you call it? You can’t imagine. I’m lying there, mouth full of dirt, don’t know if I’m dead or alive, or if this is a bad dream or what, and then I saw it next to me and it…” He stopped again. “Her hand. Nails painted pink and all. Jesus.” His face was reddening, his jaw set.
I decided to move on to what came after the crash, noting that he’d returned to work quite soon after. “I need the job,” he said bitterly. “If I keep getting signed off sick, they’ll fire me. I can tell the company wants to get rid of me anyhow – they all think I should’ve died instead of her.”
His rage and paranoia were growing, pulsing, radiating from his body, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, a sensation I’d learnt to take seriously in my forensic training. I knew I should end the interview immediately. Nothing I could say would make him feel calmer or less afraid.
Just as I was thinking this, he confirmed it. “Shrinks… f---ing shrinks and lawyers!” His eyes were fierce, and flecks of saliva formed at the edge of his lips. “You’re all the same, you lot.” Instinctively, I drew back, and that’s when I saw his discarded hammer lying on the floor. I realised his eyes were on it, too. There was a pregnant pause – then he kicked it, sending it skittering across the floor, shouting, “I’ve had enough!” before stalking off.
Caleb needed urgent help. He presented a risk to himself and others and shouldn’t be in a workplace where many tools could be used as weapons.
The next day, Wendy rang to tell me that he’d been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, detained involuntarily and diagnosed with paranoid psychosis.
Follow-up assessments
I didn’t think I needed to meet with Lisa again, but I asked if I could see Martin for a follow-up and as soon as he arrived, I noticed a difference in him; he seemed much more present and alive. He shook my hand and immediately made eye contact, saying he felt better.Martin’s GP had changed his meds for depression and got him some cognitive behavioural therapy, which had made a big difference. He’d given up his job and he and his family were moving to Kent. I could see he was still a saddened man, much altered by his experience, but I felt heartened that he seemed more engaged in the business of life.
Before I followed up with Caleb, I was able to request and review his GP’s notes and found that he’d been known to the child protection services, and some reports referred to him being taken into care briefly as a boy. I also saw a couple of assessments by child psychiatrists who had seen him years earlier – presumably, the first of his “f---ing shrinks”.
Eventually, I heard from Wendy that Caleb was about to be discharged from the hospital and was ready to meet with me again to complete our assessment. When I arrived at the psychiatric facility, I noticed immediately how his appearance had changed. He’d put on weight – a side effect of the anti-psychosis drugs – and it suited him. His attitude was also entirely different: he welcomed me with a smile and a handshake, and swiftly apologised for his sudden exit from the factory that day. I wasn’t surprised to find him so altered; it’s not unusual for acute psychoses to resolve just as quickly as they start, with medication and appropriate care. None of this meant that Caleb had left the trauma behind; he might just be able to speak about it now.
This time, he seemed more sad than angry, and when I asked him about his worst moment, he spoke again about seeing poor Terri’s severed hand, and how he would never forget it.
He started to tell me a little about his early life. His mother had run away from home when she became pregnant at 16, finding work in a pub in London. She often dated men she met there, he said, adding, “I was scared of them, and of her, too. She’d go on the piss and scream at me… And then her boyfriends beat her up sometimes, in front of me.” They had also beaten him. “See here?” He pointed to the gaps in his teeth. “I’d only just grown in my big teeth when one of them did that.” He ran away from home and ended up in care, until his mother found safe accommodation away from the pub. He did an apprenticeship that would ultimately lead to his job at the kitchen factory. “I was hired just in time to go along to the Christmas raffle, wasn’t I? Lucky me.”
I asked if he thought he was ready to return to work, but he’d decided to follow his doctor’s suggestion to continue with rehabilitation a little longer. I felt I could now give him the PTSD symptom checklist. In the “past” column, he ticked “intrusive images” – that severed hand had been persistent, although it was now largely gone.
“But I’ve got something else that isn’t on your list. I still don’t feel right. I feel like a snail without a shell,” he said. He told me about memories of how his mother would sometimes lock him in his room all day. He was worried that when he left the facility his rage might boil over, at her. I was seeing him as an independent expert, not a therapist, and I had to be careful not to step outside my role. I told him to consider staying at the facility and having more therapy, looking at his childhood fears as well as the crash. I didn’t add that I had plenty of evidence that he had suffered a significant psychological injury because of the accident, affecting his day-to-day functioning, especially his work. I thought that when the court came to allocate damages, Caleb would get more than Martin or Lisa, and I hoped he would use that money to continue his recovery after being discharged. I would highlight his need for long-term therapy in my report.
When I finished my assessments, I sent them to Wendy and my work was submitted into evidence.
Settlements and the aftermath
More than a year later, there was, as predicted, a settlement, which, to my relief, meant that I would not have to go to court to defend my opinions. As I had guessed, Caleb got the most significant amount, Martin a similar sum, and Lisa somewhat less. That seemed a bit unfair to me, with Lisa’s resilience meaning she was compensated less than the others.These three crash survivors could be considered fortunate, despite their ordeal. As Martin had said, they were the lucky ones. They were alive. But this might be all they had in common; three people could have almost the same traumatic experience but with three very different survival reactions. It was plain that emotional stressors and lack of childhood attachment security are significant risk factors that make a difference in how resilient you might be to major trauma. Lisa seemed the “luckiest” in that regard; that’s why I thought she had suffered but recovered. Today, I know better than to think that trauma stories always end so neatly.
About three years later, I received a call from a psychiatrist in Birmingham who ran a perinatal service looking after new mothers with mental health problems. She told me she was treating Lisa for acute post-partum psychosis.
My colleague knew about the helicopter crash and had gained permission to discuss Lisa’s case. She was very unwell now, ever since the birth of her daughter six months prior. “Severe depression, believing that she and the baby are about to die, hallucinating that their bodies are decomposing. Her husband thought she was going to bury the baby alive.” I struggled to reconcile this presentation with the Lisa I’d met. Something macabre was bursting out of her memory and manifesting as a paranoid belief that both she and her baby were dying or dead.
Last edited by T28B; 21st February 2026 at 23:56. Reason: Use quote brackets next time please
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From: Florida
Lisa had not mentioned the helicopter crash in her antenatal clinic, and it had taken another life-changing event – albeit something positive – to bring this acute response to the fore.
As it happened, I was embarking on some research into maternal violence and its motives, and discovering more about how “matrescence” – the transition to motherhood – can be a potent psychological stressor, even when the pregnancy and the baby are much wanted. My continued research in this area and my work in the family court would reinforce the idea that there is nothing like a pregnancy for activating memories of being vulnerable and making mothers-to-be aware of the potential fragility of life. Rather than “grounding” women, maternity shifts self-perspectives and memories, like tectonic plates moving in the deep unconscious.
I told the psychiatrist that there had been no sign of any persistent mental health problems when I interviewed Lisa. She had successfully avoided engaging with her sense of fear, which meant I saw only her briskness and lucidity, her faith in a positive future. With hindsight, when I recalled how she described her sense of helplessness and that distorted sense of time in the absolute silence after the crash, I realised I had missed something darker. How remarkable the process of encoding and retrieving memories can be; the more I learn about this, the less I think I know.
The perinatal psychiatrist and I kept in touch, and in time she told me that after specialist treatment and care, Lisa made a good recovery and went home with her baby girl. Lisa’s story made me reconsider some important ideas, and it has stayed with me even now because of the mystery of that acute contrast between her response to the crash and her reaction to becoming a mother. Was she just lucky with helicopter crashes and unlucky with the transition to a new identity as a mother? I am left to wonder whether traumatic memories somehow hide in the mind. But if so, where? All I can say with certainty is that recovery from trauma sets its own timeline, a trail that may bend, incline or twist without warning.
As it happened, I was embarking on some research into maternal violence and its motives, and discovering more about how “matrescence” – the transition to motherhood – can be a potent psychological stressor, even when the pregnancy and the baby are much wanted. My continued research in this area and my work in the family court would reinforce the idea that there is nothing like a pregnancy for activating memories of being vulnerable and making mothers-to-be aware of the potential fragility of life. Rather than “grounding” women, maternity shifts self-perspectives and memories, like tectonic plates moving in the deep unconscious.
I told the psychiatrist that there had been no sign of any persistent mental health problems when I interviewed Lisa. She had successfully avoided engaging with her sense of fear, which meant I saw only her briskness and lucidity, her faith in a positive future. With hindsight, when I recalled how she described her sense of helplessness and that distorted sense of time in the absolute silence after the crash, I realised I had missed something darker. How remarkable the process of encoding and retrieving memories can be; the more I learn about this, the less I think I know.
The perinatal psychiatrist and I kept in touch, and in time she told me that after specialist treatment and care, Lisa made a good recovery and went home with her baby girl. Lisa’s story made me reconsider some important ideas, and it has stayed with me even now because of the mystery of that acute contrast between her response to the crash and her reaction to becoming a mother. Was she just lucky with helicopter crashes and unlucky with the transition to a new identity as a mother? I am left to wonder whether traumatic memories somehow hide in the mind. But if so, where? All I can say with certainty is that recovery from trauma sets its own timeline, a trail that may bend, incline or twist without warning.
*All names have been changed
Extract from Unspeakable: Stories of Survival and Transformation After Trauma by Dr Gwen Adshead & Eileen Horne (Faber, £20), which will be published on Feb 26
My opinion is this is baloney from start to finish and Gwen Adshead is a fraud. It reads like AI but she made some modifications.
Last edited by T28B; 21st February 2026 at 23:55. Reason: Use quote brackets next time please
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From: After all, what’s more important than proving to someone on the internet that they’re wrong? - Manson
*All names have been changed
Extract from Unspeakable: Stories of Survival and Transformation After Trauma by Dr Gwen Adshead & Eileen Horne (Faber, £20), which will be published on Feb 26
My opinion is this is baloney from start to finish and Gwen Adshead is a fraud. It reads like AI but she made some modifications.
Joined: Oct 1999
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From: Den Haag
You know it’s fake when it says it was 17 C in March! 😂
Even if it’s a composite of more than one account, it’s pretty clumsy and still hard to identify the accidents in question. I can’t think of any helicopter accident that has resulted in a group of pax waiting for 90 minutes for first responders. Or caused by engine failure. Single engine aircraft don’t have two pilots or “black boxes” either.
When you see this level of creative license being used in a familiar subject, it makes you wonder about the rest of the book!
Even if it’s a composite of more than one account, it’s pretty clumsy and still hard to identify the accidents in question. I can’t think of any helicopter accident that has resulted in a group of pax waiting for 90 minutes for first responders. Or caused by engine failure. Single engine aircraft don’t have two pilots or “black boxes” either.
When you see this level of creative license being used in a familiar subject, it makes you wonder about the rest of the book!
Gnome de PPRuNe
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From: Too close to Croydon for comfort
Now, where's my cozzy...
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From: South West
A Huey would match. The Bell 214 was also even heavier at 6000 kg - that was used for some commercial stuff in the middle east so possibly could have had 2 pilots and an FDR.
But agree, the description is just a load of made up junk.
But agree, the description is just a load of made up junk.
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From: Gold Coast, Australia
The pilot and co-pilot, separated from them by a glass panel, wore headphones and communicated through a crackly speaker to the cabin
As this was a tour, they flew with an open door.
the cockpit splitting from the passenger cabin on impact. The report described how the tail rotor sheared off, with the acute tilt causing passenger D (female, 47) to be propelled through the open door into the rotor blades, resulting in decapitation and dismemberment
The land of make believe, such a book and author deserve condemning at every level. She claims a Doctorate, which in itself is a major concern if she treats patients under such fabricated writings.
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From: South West
I was only pointing out there are 4000kg singles. The rest is utter rubbish.
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From: London, UK
BBC Radio 4 has this too: Unspeakable: Survival and Transformation After Trauma by Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne
I'd agree with treadigraph and DVDT's find, these are based on a book and likely to be composite/modified accounts to anonymise them preserving the essential facts on distress and trauma. The issue here is organisations not making that clear when they present abridged sections of the book. Worth some caution on avoiding libellous comments. The author's description from Faber and Faber:
I'd agree with treadigraph and DVDT's find, these are based on a book and likely to be composite/modified accounts to anonymise them preserving the essential facts on distress and trauma. The issue here is organisations not making that clear when they present abridged sections of the book. Worth some caution on avoiding libellous comments. The author's description from Faber and Faber:
Dr Gwen Adshead trained at St George’s Hospital, the Institute of Psychiatry and the Institute of Group Analysis. She has worked as a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist in the NHS for nearly three decades, within prisons, at secure hospitals including Broadmoor, and in the community. She has published over one hundred academic works; she holds an MA in Medical Law and Ethics as well as an honorary doctorate from St George’s Hospital Medical School and has lectured widely, including as a visiting professor at Yale and as the Gresham College Professor of Psychiatry. In 2013, she was honoured with the Royal College of Psychiatry’s President’s Medal. She is the co-author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry.
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From: The Gulf Coast
BBC Radio 4 has this too: Unspeakable: Survival and Transformation After Trauma by Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne
I'd agree with treadigraph and DVDT's find, these are based on a book and likely to be composite/modified accounts to anonymise them preserving the essential facts on distress and trauma.
I'd agree with treadigraph and DVDT's find, these are based on a book and likely to be composite/modified accounts to anonymise them preserving the essential facts on distress and trauma.
Joined: Sep 2024
Posts: 21
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From: Florida
BBC Radio 4 has this too: Unspeakable: Survival and Transformation After Trauma by Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne
I'd agree with treadigraph and DVDT's find, these are based on a book and likely to be composite/modified accounts to anonymise them preserving the essential facts on distress and trauma. The issue here is organisations not making that clear when they present abridged sections of the book. Worth some caution on avoiding libellous comments. The author's description from Faber and Faber:
I'd agree with treadigraph and DVDT's find, these are based on a book and likely to be composite/modified accounts to anonymise them preserving the essential facts on distress and trauma. The issue here is organisations not making that clear when they present abridged sections of the book. Worth some caution on avoiding libellous comments. The author's description from Faber and Faber: