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Paralyzed Plane Crash Survivor Ready to Conquer Chicago Marathon

By Justin Breen | October 8, 2014 7:33am

WICKER PARK — His plane's engines dead, pilot Ted Moss glided toward the ever-approaching ground with an uncertain future.

After passing through heavy fog, Moss' last memory before impact was a hazy-looking green field of corn.

"Staying calm, that's the basic thing that saved me," said Moss, who was flying solo. "I don't have any recollection that I was going to crash or die or that anything was going to happen. I just kept telling myself, stay calm."

Justin Breen says Moss stayed calm during the crash, and it likely saved his life:

When Moss gained consciousness shortly after his Beech model 95-B55 crashed into a cornfield — the plane's wings bent, its windshield cracked — he was upright, still snuggly held in his chair by a seatbelt. The apparatus had saved his life, but he said it also had caused a spinal cord injury that left him a paraplegic.

 Ted Moss, a Wicker Park orthodonist, with family. Moss survived a plane crash in 2006 and will race in a wheelchair at Sunday's Chicago Marathon.
Ted Moss, a Wicker Park orthodonist, with family. Moss survived a plane crash in 2006 and will race in a wheelchair at Sunday's Chicago Marathon.
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Laura Moss

"I knew immediately I had a spinal cord injury," said Moss, whose spinal cord had broken near the T12 vertebra after his head had smacked the cockpit ceiling upon impact.

"I didn't know what was ahead of me, but I just knew that I would still see my family and that paraplegia was not the end of the world for me," the Lake Forest resident said.

The life-changing event took place July 27, 2006. By September of that year, he had been released from a five-week stint at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and, in October, he had learned to drive using hand-control devices. Before Christmas, he started working again as an orthodontist, including at Wicker Park Orthodontics on North Avenue.

Five years ago, Moss — a former varsity wrestler at Northwestern University — took up hand cycling as a way to get back into shape. This past July, he shifted his focus to wheelchair racing, joining the Downtown-based Spinal Cord Injury Sucks. The nonprofit organization features several wheelchair competitors who will take part in Sunday's Chicago Marathon.

That includes the 65-year-old Moss, who is the group's oldest member and is entering a marathon for the first time.

"Ted is inspiring, I think, for what he has been through at this point in his life and how active and the great shape he is in," said Adam Finney, a member of the group.

Fortunate to 'come out alive'

Asked to reveal what July 27, 2006 meant to him, Moss said: "A dramatic change in my lifestyle."

Flying had become second nature and a major mode of transportation for Moss ever since he and several Sigma Chi fraternity brothers earned their pilot licenses during his senior year at Northwestern.

Prior to the crash, Moss had accumulated 1,785 hours of flight experience — almost a full year in the air — including 1,286 in the same Beech model 95-B55 he piloted on that fateful day. Many of those hours were logged during his weekly commutes to and from Sterling, Ill., where he owns and operates a second orthodontics practice.

"It's a 35-minute flight, and it saved me a lot of time and a lot of stress generally," Moss said. "I'd go there early in the morning, usually just flying with the auto pilot on, just drinking my coffee and just enjoying flying."

In all of years of flying, Moss said he had experienced only minor technical issues prior to July 27, 2006.

But that day was far different.

A detailed crash report, which Moss has never read, described the conditions as extremely foggy with poor visibility. Moss, who had left Waukegan Regional Airport at 7 a.m., tried to land about 45 minutes later at Dixon Memorial Airport, but the fog led to a "missed approach" and forced Moss' plane into a holding pattern as he waited for improved weather.

While holding, the right engine failed in Moss' two-engine Beech, built in 1969. He attempted to restart the engine, which was unsuccessful, and then the left engine quit. The report says Moss "declared an emergency" and his plane essentially turned into a glider. He passed through the fog and saw the ground approaching, but he had a momentary loss of memory and doesn't recall what happened as he hovered about 100 feet over the earth's surface and then crashed.

He landed in the cornfield about two miles from the airport. Moss estimates he waited about three hours for help to arrive.

"My injuries, I assessed them," he said. "I had a cut on my chin and a cut on the top of my head, and of course my spinal cord injury.

 Ted Moss with his family in photo from 1989 in front of a plane. In 2006, Moss survived a plane crash.
Ted Moss with his family in photo from 1989 in front of a plane. In 2006, Moss survived a plane crash.
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Ted Moss

"The good news is I landed right-side up. I wouldn't have lived if the plane had turned over. Knowing the situation, I knew it was very fortunate to come out of it alive. Things that I had control of, I did well enough to get the plane landed. The things I didn't have control of, I was lucky, because I could have hit power lines, high-tension wires or a building or a house."

Moss had a cell phone with him, but he couldn't reach it as he heard the ringtone of calls from friends and family members — including wife Libby, daughters Laura and Morgan, and son Ben.

Moss was taken to a hospital in Rockford, and the next day he told Ben something that still resonates.

"He said: 'I don’t want anyone to pity me, I’ve overcome enough challenges in my life, this is just one more'," said Ben Moss, a Gold Coast resident.

Said Laura Moss: "We were placed in a waiting room before the doctor came in to deliver the news. After talking through the injury, he shared that he has seen many plane crashes and very few are as lucky as [Ted]. Yes, he was alive and had full brain activity. He was lucky."

'I'm very thankful'

Ben Moss said he's been amazed by his dad's ability to continue working — he drives to Wicker Park and also two hours to Sterling — and his athletic prowess. He and Libby will be in attendance Sunday to watch Ted's attempt at marathon glory.

"The accident may have taken away his ability to walk, but it has not taken away his mental toughness or perseverance," Ben Moss said.

Ted said he misses flying, but he'll never pilot a plane again. Moss doesn't want to put his family through "that worry again," he said.

His main mission for the Chicago Marathon has been to raise money for Spinal Cord Injury Sucks. He has raised almost $3,000, double his goal.

And as he powers his wheelchair over 26.2 miles of the city's streets, Moss said he'll think about his good fortune.

"I've had enough time to think of what a close call it was," he said. "And I'm very thankful."

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