Air show tragedy in Germany brought Whitney couple together
By Kerri Rempp, Record Staff Writer Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The lives of Myron and Deb Riggs shadowed each other for years before they met and married. They joined the Armed Services, married fellow soldiers, spent time in San Antonio, Texas, and served overseas. How they ended up together living on Myron’s grandfather’s farm in Whitney is a story of tragic loss, faith and love. This is part two of their story.
Myron Riggs was born and raised in Chadron, attending Alpha school before graduating from Chadron High School.
After graduation, Myron joined the staff of the Dawes County Sheriff’s Office as a jailer. He worked in that position for two years, but decided he wanted to do more. He wanted to be a cop.
Myron joined the Army as a military policeman, with the idea that when his tour was over he’d have the training and experience to serve as a civilian police officer. He was stationed in California for a time and then headed to San Antonio, Texas, for K-9 school in the mid-1980s. Once he’d completed his K-9 training he was sent to Germany, where he met Genevieve Frymyer, who was also assigned there. The West Virginia native carried out radio repair on the Army’s two-way radios and field phones while caring for her son, Joshua.
Myron and Genevieve were married in Svendborg, Denmark, on what was known as the “Darling Denmark” tour because so many military couples were wed there. They started their lives together as a family June 9, 1988.
A few short months later, they were gearing up for the start of a busy season. Myron was due to re-enlist and begin platoon leadership training the next Monday, and Joshua was set to enter school the same day. They decided to have one last fun family weekend before they got down to the routine of school and training.
“I remember I had all my uniforms pressed and laid out, ready to go,” Myron recalls.
The first year he was stationed in Germany he attended the Ramstein air show and enjoyed it immensely. Work kept him away the second year, but in 1988, his third year in Germany, he decided to share the experience with his new family.
“People came from all over Europe to watch this air show,” he says.
Looking back 20 years, Myron still remembers the heat of the day and his thoughts moments before tragedy struck.
“It was hot n very, very hot that day. We were just starting to leave because it was the last display of the day,” he says. The announcer had introduced the next act n the Italian jets in a formation called the pierced heart n and as they performed their routine, something looked off to Myron.
“In my head I said, ‘Man, he looks like he’s gonna hit them.’ And he did.”
The pilot of one of the jets miscalculated his trajectory and clipped another of the planes. The second plane spun out of control, crashing into a third plane before landing on a taxiway and destroying a Med-Evac helipocter. The third plane involved in the crash fell on to and next to the runway, exploding into a fireball. The lone jet that triggered the catastrophe crossed the runway and cart-wheeled into the crowd.
As the plane dropped onto the runway that day in August, Myron had only a fraction of a second to think ‘maybe we won’t get run over.’
“It was deathly silent,” Myron recalls. “Everybody asks ‘why didn’t they run?’ There was no time to run. The next thing I remember I looked down and I was on fire.”
Myron managed to rip off his shirt and stay calm enough to remember to stop, drop and roll to put the fire out. He was still so severely burned, however, that he was loaded on a Black Hawk helicopter and flown to a local military hospital. He’d lost track of Genevieve and Josh in the chaos but had hopes they were OK and at home or alive in a different hospital.
A few days after the disaster, just before he was flown to the U.S. for treatment, Myron was told they had died at the scene of the accident.
Myron and Steve Hull, also injured in Ramstein crash, arrived at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio on the same Med-Evac flight.
While Deb Hull was praying for her husband Steve to wake from his coma, Myron was recovering from second and third degree burns on 70 percent of his body. Sulphur mylon salve was applied to his burned skin to medicate it, and the areas were debrided to prepare his body for skin grafts. The entire process was a painful one n nurses often cried and apologized while caring for their patients - and visitors were restricted to immediate family.
“Nobody was allowed in the room unless they were covered head to toe,” Myron says.
Doctors weren’t sure he would survive and didn’t expect him to be able to walk if he did.
Drifting in and out of pain, Myron was aware of the other patients in the burn ward, and often visited with them, encouraging them to continue fighting and drawing from their strength.
In October, he learned Steve had died without ever awaking from his coma. Myron was able to fly home to Chadron for Thanksgiving and spent Christmas in his doctor’s home. Six months after arriving at Fort Sam Houston, he walked out of the hospital without ever meeting Steve’s widow, Deb Hull.
Watch for the final installment of this three-part series about Myron and Deb Riggs in next week’s issue of The Chadron Record.
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Record photo by Kerri Rempp Myron and Deb Riggs of Whitney look through old photos of their late spouses and share fond memories.
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