Texas Model Has 'Long Road to Recovery' After Walking Into Plane Propeller

[apples]

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/12/06/texas-model-has-long-road-to-recovery-after-walking-into-plane-propeller/?test=faces

A fashion model and magazine editor was recovering in a hospital Tuesday after severing her hand and suffering severe facial injuries when she walked into a spinning airplane propeller in north Texas.

Witnesses said that Lauren Scruggs, 23, had just stepped off the plane at a private airport in McKinney, Texas, on Saturday night when she apparently walked in front of the propeller. She was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where she underwent several surgeries over the weekend.

Surgeons had to amputate Scruggs' left hand, and the accident caused severe damage to her shoulder and head, the New York Post reported.

Scruggs, who lives in Plano, Texas, is the editor of the online fashion magazine LOLO and has also worked in the costume department of the show "Gossip Girl."

LoLo magazine editor and model Lauren Scruggs interviewing Kellan Lutz (LoLo/Vimeo)

[JohnBrowdie]

good heavens.  how do you walk into an airplane propeller?   

[apples]

good heavens.  how do you walk into an airplane propeller?   

I don't know or want to.

[Stan In FL]

even if it's dark, they are really, really noisy.  and they make a lot of wind.  it seems to me that it would be pretty difficult to walk into an airplane propeller.

[Vonne]

They're invisible while spinning, and on a tarmac it's easy for the noise to blend into the surrounding noise, especially when multiple planes are about.  Unfortunately it seems to happen with some regularity, even amongst seasoned air crews and military personnel.  Just takes a moment of carelessness.

sh*tty situation.  Best of luck for a trying recovery for her. 

[jafo2010]

Idiot blond!  People do walk into propellers, but it is pure negligence on the part of that individual.  Having flown many flights, one proceeds always with extreme caution when walking around airplanes.  She was either drunk or just a plain ole dumb blond.

[JohnBrowdie]

sounds like it was a freak accident.  it was dark, perhaps the pilot was being inattentive.  it's hard to walk into the propeller of a plane like this, though.

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Lauren's parents Cheryl and Jeff Scruggs said that they believe the 23-year-old walked back toward Richmond's plane at the private airport north of Dallas to say a final thank you, perhaps as he was preparing to take off again.

While investigators look into the events leading up to the tragic accident, many are speculating as to why the propeller was left running in the first place. ABC News Aviation Consultant John Nance says that most of the time pilots would never let a passenger in or out with the engine and the propeller running.

"The pilot of a bird like an Aviat Husky is going to in almost all cases shut the engine down completely and have the propeller stop, which happens almost immediately as soon as you shut it down," Nance said. "Because we know the danger of having a human being anywhere close to a twirling prop."

Nance agrees that she may not have known that she was in the vicinity of the spinning propeller when she was struck, adding that the engine on a small airplane makes far more noise than the propeller does, and she would need to be acutely aware of the physiology of the airplane to be able to detect it.
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[JohnBrowdie]

and when I say, "hard to walk into the propeller of a plane like this", it is a bit of a relative phrase.  it's harder than walking into the propeller of this plane, for example.

[Doc]

good heavens.  how do you walk into an airplane propeller?   

They are invisible when they are spinning, and with all the engine noise it's easy for someone not aquainted with aircraft to do.

In all my years of flying my own aircraft, and others, I only had it come close to happening once.......and that was on a 1946 model Taylorcraft, which had no electric starter, and had to be started by hand.  When you are alone, in the dark.....it can happen.......

doc

[natstew]

good heavens.  how do you walk into an airplane propeller?   

 I flew out of Tallahassee on a U.S. Airways twin engine prop plane in 95. On boarding or deboarding you had to walk right by the prop on the left wing. The crew installed a rope like thing to secure the propeller from turning, I guess as an assurance that the engine was off or that it wasn't started while boarding and deboarding. I can see how it could happen.