Words can't even begin to express the sorrow I feel after this weeks events. It seems to be one tragedy after another. How does one even begin to wrap their mind around so much death in such a short amount of time?
On Monday afternoon (morning for all of my friends back in America), I found out that there had been a mass stabbing at Ohio State University. The attacker, an 18-year-old transfer student, ran his car into a group of students at OSU before getting out and running at a passerby with a knife. Eleven people were injured in the attack, three of them still hospitalized. Abdul Razak Ali Artan was shot and killed by a police officer after refusing orders to stop his attack. It was an act of violence that is still under investigation for a clear motive.
The next day I awoke to find news that a plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team, along with many journalists, had crashed into a mountain in Columbia. I was horrified. Of the 77 people aboard the flight, only five have been reported as survivors. An entire football team was virtually wiped out in a single moment, right before they were to play in the championship game they had worked so hard to make it to. How do you process something like that? How do you watch videos of the team celebrating their last victory and remind yourself that they're all dead?
As someone who flies fairly regularly, the thought of a plane crash shook me to my core. Sure, it's a rare occurrence, but it does happen. Authorities report that lack of fuel may have been the cause of the crash, along with electrical failure. The pilot, allegedly, had known beforehand that the plane would barely carry enough fuel to make it from Bolivia to the airport in Medellin, Columbia. They were supposed to land in the Colombian capital of Bogota if they ran low on fuel. A report stated that another flight needed priority landing at that time due to an issue on board, preventing the Chapecoense flight from making a stop. The plane crashed just minutes before they were scheduled to land. Those few minutes changed everything.
That same day, reports came flooding in of a massive wildfire spreading throughout the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. The fires made their way to the nearby town of Gatlinburg, killing three, evacuating 14,000, and destroying a majority of the city. People's homes and business — completely gone. Everything these people had worked for, just destroyed in a matter of hours.
The attack at Ohio State University lasted only two minutes before the attacker was shot and killed by police. The flight carrying the Chapecoense Real football team was only minutes away from landing when it crashed. The wildfires in the Smokey Mountains spread so quickly, that some families only had minutes to evacuate their homes, leaving with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Tragedy happens in a matter of moments.
The world has gotten a little darker in these past couple of days. We have witnessed events so horrific, it's hard to believe they're even real. Now, all we can do is hope and extend our hands to those who need them. All we can do is wait.
