Bad Things Come in Threes

Kristy Sheridan had survived a plane crash in 1999 and then a 60-foot fall from a ledge in the Black Forest a decade later. She figured she’d break her neck a third time because bad things come in threes. 

She got it partially right. 

God would save her a third time but not from a potentially fatal neck injury, or a life confined to a wheelchair. The third save redefined her completely. 

“I knew God meant me to write my story,” she revealed in Third Save: Rescued from Death, Living in Joy, a manuscript she co-authored with her writing coach, Larry Leech. “But this book is about more than me. This story is also about my only surviving sibling, Erich, and how God changed us.”

Bad things come in threes, right? Kristy is living proof that they don’t. 

“I Have a Story for You”

I didn’t know Kristy or the existence of her manuscript until April when she’d emailed out-of-the-blue. 

The subject line read: “I have a story for you.”

She’d offered to connect me with the man who’d pulled her to safety after American Airlines Flight 1420 overran the runway at Little Rock International Airport in 1999 and crashed into a steel structure cemented into the Arkansas riverbank, causing the death of 11 people onboard. 

After describing the horror of her entrapment inside the burning wreck, she said she’d called out for help. “He heard me, halted his own escape, dug me out, and carried me to safety. I owe my life to this brave hero.”

She had my interest. What a story. 

But a few sentences later she then revealed two other saves, and I knew I had to talk with this former Army brat. Survival stories appeal to many, especially those that involve personal change. A renewed outlook. A greater trust in something far larger than ourselves.

Kristy’s story had it all, including the fear that bad things come in threes.

The Story of Two Children

“I’d made my job my idol,” she said when we talked. She defined success by achievements and followed the maxim: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Her hard work and commitment paid off. By the age of 27, she had become a hard-charging regional sales manager for a Fortune 50 firm. Indeed, the world had become her oyster.

All par for Kristy’s course. Her whole life, she strived for perfection. Dependability. Control. She was the quintessential people pleaser, the goody-goody who took the lead and assiduously followed and enforced the rules.

Her brother, Erich, whom her parents had adopted from a German orphanage, was her exact opposite. As a kid, he acted up and had trouble fitting in, bouncing from school-to-school because of behavioral issues. By the age of 18, he’d developed a full-blown drinking problem that affected his ability to hold a job.

Erich embarrassed Kristy. The chasm between siblings widened. Unable to stay out of trouble, he went to prison 19 times before getting clean and experiencing his own Jesus moment. His estranged sister? She led the perfect life in Dallas with her husband and two kids. Her kids didn’t even know they had an uncle.

Unbeknownst to her and her parents, Erich suffered from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome due to his biological mother’s addiction during pregnancy. It caused serious irreparable damage to Erich’s brain, affecting his growth, motor and social skills, and cognitive abilities. 

He wasn’t a bad boy. Erich was a damaged and misunderstood boy. An abandoned kid who felt nothing but loneliness his entire life.

Who Then is Kristy Sheridan?

It took the plane crash to strip Kristy of her identity and smash the idol her career had become. Weeks of therapy stretched into months and a depressing reality settled in. Her 16-year-old career would have to end. And now she wondered what God wanted for her life.

Humbled in spirit, she tried harder to live purposely and started reaching out to her long-ignored, still troubled brother. But despite everything that had happened, she hadn’t fully put her trust in God, she said.

She thought God wanted her to write about her experiences. But her words fell flat.

A plummet off a ledge helped her see the path forward. “In the years after the fall, I grew closer to God . . .”  And finally, “I took the plunge to ask God to rule my life.”

Her submission opened the door to her final save . . . the epiphany.

The Epiphany

It happened in 2019 while driving home from jury duty. “The presence of the Almighty washed over me . . . “And God poured into me his marching orders, his plan for my life, for which I had prayed for so long. Sow Jesus. . . God had empowered me to share Christ.”

Just like that, God had lit the match. 

The time had come for Kristy to write the book she’d struggled over for 15 years. “The Holy Spirit guided my mind through Erich’s past” and as his story tumbled into her laptop, “an all-consuming grief swallowed me whole . . . Not even our loving family could restore Erich’s trampled heart.”

“God gave me the gift of a story,” she said. A story that has as much to do with Erich as it does with Kristy and her miraculous recoveries. Her story is about redemption. Forgiveness. Love. And finding peace and joy in all circumstances.

Bad things come in threes? Not so for Kristy. She and her brother are reconciled. Their family is restored because good things happened in threes.

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A note from Lori: Great news! Third Save is now available at Amazon and other book stores. Congratulations to both Kristy and Larry. Buy your copy today.