A passenger in the front car of doomed Metrolink Train 111, Kipp Landis really should have died in the Chatsworth crash that killed 25 fellow commuters in September.
So this Thanksgiving, the 42-year-old Moorpark lawyer and his family have a lot to feel fortunate about, even as he slowly recovers from broken bones, a bruised heart and internal bleeding.
“These upcoming holidays will be a reminder that there are other families not as fortunate as my family,” Landis said. “I have every reason to be optimistic and thankful.”
The Sept. 12 Metrolink crash kicked off a series of man-made and natural disasters and tragic events in the San Fernando Valley that have tested the resolve of many residents.
Just a couple of weeks after crash-site investigators finished up in Chatsworth, a distressed Porter Ranch financial analyst facing economic ruin slaughtered his family and then committed suicide. A week later, two Santa Ana wind-driven brushfires on opposite ends of the Valley destroyed dozens of homes and scorched thousands of acres.
Then on the evening of Nov. 15, a wind-whipped fire that started on Sayre Street in Sylmar grew quickly into one of Los Angeles’ most destructive blazes on record, consuming nearly 500 homes and leaving huge swaths of Valley hillsides charred.
All this was leading up to a holiday season that was already going to be gloomy on increasingly bleak economic news. But many Valley residents appear to have faced - and overcome - this Jobian test of faith.
That toughness of spirit is epitomized by Anna Cox and her Hollywood stuntman husband Monty, who just a month after losing their Twin Lakes home near Chatsworth were out helping victims of the Sayre Fire.
“Tough times never last but tough people do,” Cox said. “This defines anyone who will survive these events.”
The selflessness and positive outlook shown by many in the Valley’s recent disasters are admirable, but experts
warn that recovering and moving on too quickly - like failing to adequately mourn the death of a loved one - is not healthy.Rabbi Harold Kushner, the acclaimed author of the best-seller “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” cautions that sometimes the full impact of the disasters set in long after the event.
“If people who have lost their homes or have had loved ones die can genuinely say, `I’ve had a pretty good life and I have a lot to be grateful for, with my family and what I can still do and that my mind works,’ well, then, that’s great,” he said.
“If it’s from denial … then I worry about the fact that they’re repressing emotions.”
While many who suffered the events of the past 2<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2 months took it in stride, there was no shortage of emotional releases:
Laura Baz, 42, clutching her child’s teddy bear as she paced the San Fernando High School gym, inconsolable at learning that her Lopez Canyon home had gone up in flames.
A middle-aged man who lost his home in the Sesnon Fire collapsing into the arms of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, begging him for help to put his family’s life back together.
Ed and Barbara Kloster and their worried family frantically going from hospital to hospital trying to locate son Michael, who sustained major injuries in the Metrolink crash. After finding him, they held a vigil
until they were certain he would survive.Psychologists point to human reactions to disasters such as these as character-defining moments.
“Any time individuals face adversity and challenges, like losing their homes or facing the possibility of death, (those) are often the times when we make the most important decisions in our lives,” said Diane Gehart, a psychology professor at California State University, Northridge, and a behavior therapist.
“And it’s how you choose to respond where your character is shaped and defined. You can be hysterical, fearful and paranoid, but at a certain point, it’s important that an individual or a community says, `OK, we’re going to face this challenge head on.’
“That’s what it appears has happened in some of these communities where neighbors who didn’t have any connection before the fires or the Metrolink crash were brought together.”
It is what happened to Maria Corona, 53, a disabled homeowner who returned to Lopez Canyon from an evacuation shelter last month to find that the Marek Fire near Sylmar had burned neighbors’ homes but not hers. She offered temporary housing to those who needed a roof over their heads.
“I’m not well. I have leukemia, and I suffer from headaches and nightmares from the fire,” she said. “But, all things considered, I’m one of the lucky ones.”
Few, however, feel luckier than Landis, who was heading home Sept. 12 to coach his 5-year-old son’s soccer practice - riding in what friends had warned him was the “suicide car.”
“I was riding in the front car, and I think I was only one of (a handful of people) in the front car who weren’t killed,” said Landis, a former professional baseball pitcher in the Minnesota Twins organization.
The crash knocked him unconscious and he awoke to a pitcher’s worst nightmare.
“I thought my arm was cut off,” he recalled. “There was an arm laying across my body … and I was touching the arm. So I told the firemen my arm had been severed. But I could hear the firemen talking to each other, and they said `No, that’s a DB.’ A dead body.”
He suffered a bruised heart and lungs, broken ribs, a broken back, broken arm, fractured sternum and internal bleeding. He also had a wrist dislocated so badly he has needed two operations.
“I don’t know if I will ever be able to even do something like pitching batting practice to any of my sons,” said Landis, who still faces months of recuperation.
“It’s been a mixed blessing staying home. It’s nice to see more of my kids, but it’s also hard because I don’t like my kids to see me in this kind of condition.”
But Landis said his injuries have not kept him from re-evaluating life and being positive about his future with wife Charee and their three young sons.
And through his ordeal, there has been no bitterness.
“People ask me that all the time,” he said, “and I think it’s selfish of me to complain.”
tony.castro@dailynews.com 818-713-3761