A STORY ABOUT THE MAKING OF SOLE SURVIVOR

by Mitch Kosterman

We were shooting on a very rainy, windy night. Myself and John C. McGinley were in a helicopter and the scene called for the helicopter to land quickly whereupon we were to jump out, pull our guns and rush the front door of a building. That was it but there was a heck of a storm raging.

The windscreen of the helicopter fogged right up whenever we were on the ground, so we had to hover in the air while we waited for the call to action. We were level with the traffic on an overpass and I could see the shocked faces of the drivers as they sped by.

We didn't get to take a preparatory walk where we were supposed to run to because there was no time. It was so dark we couldn't even see the path we were going to take. I was pretty sure it was not going to work but decided to just keep quiet and give it a try. The whole shot was a mess.

When the helicopter bounced down, John and I jumped out and pulled our guns and ran toward the building. In just a few steps, my head was yanked back as I got to the end of the length of the cable for my headset which I was still wearing which was still plugged into the cockpit. I felt like an idiot. Unbeknownst to me, John had done the same thing on the other side. I am told the crew were laughing so hard nothing in that shot was going to work anyway but we were going to give it a try.

As soon as I had extricated myself from the headset, I resumed my purposeful dash toward the building. The lights were in my eyes, it was dark, there were vehicles and the rain was blurring my vision. I ran to one side of a vehicle and found myself trapped so that I couldn't get to the door of the building. John was standing on the other side of the vehicle waiting for me. It was so comical I almost laughed but the show was a serious one, so that wouldn't have helped.

I jumped up on the planter that ran around the building in a bid to get by the front of the vehicle and make my way to John. Bad idea. The planter was built out of landscaping ties (4 x 4 inch wood rails) which were very slippery. Down I went.

I tried to get up but found I did not have the use of my left arm. I was in excruciating pain. I flopped around like a salmon for a while then people started rushing in because John was calling for help. My brother (yes, Clif the bodyguard/production manager) was one of the first on the scene. Having little sympathy for his brother who he had seen injured many times over the years, he said, "Give him some morphine and put him back in the game!". I THINK he was joking. Next he said, "Hey, holy crap, his arm is sticking out of his back." That got everyone's attention. I had a posterior dislocation of my left shoulder.

A nice first aid attendant held my head and rain drops fell on my face while I screamed obscenities, awaiting the ambulance. In the ambulance they gave me nitrous oxide from a bottle and it didn't help much. They asked me what the pain was on a scale of one to ten and I said, "Eleven." They started giving me morphine which, if you have ever had it, you know only works for what seems like a few seconds then you need more. When I was strapped in tight in the ambulance, and I was sure they were ready to go, the driver hesitated. He said to his comrade, "Are they doing another take...should we wait?" He didn't want to go because he would have to drive through the set.

I yelled from the gurney, "For #&$^#^ sake! How can they do another take when I'm lying in here!?" We took off. It seemed like a long ride and the pain never got any better. At the hospital my brother Clif was waiting. He wasn't joking any more. Actually, he was quite sympathetic.

They laid me out on a bed and set me up with a morphine drip. They got me into x-ray pretty quick but it sure hurt getting into positions for the pictures. Back out on the ward with the IV drip working, I got to settle down a bit. I got a little foggy headed. I saw my brother talking to the doc and then a woman came and held my head. It was nice.

She said in a dreamy voice, "Hi. My name is Karen. I'm the anesthetist. I am going to..."

The next I know I am struggling to open my eyes. I figure I must be getting some heavy drugs. I force my eyes open and I see that my brother is still there but the doc has disappeared. The nice anesthetist is also gone and the nurse behind the counter opposite me seemed to have moved. How could that be, I thought. I had only closed my eyes for a second. Then I noticed most of the pain was gone. It was now nothing but a dull ache.

I said to Clif, "It's getting better".

He started and said, "Hey, you're awake. Yeah, it should feel better; we fixed it".

"What do you mean?", I asked him. "You fixed it?"

"Yeah, me and the doc. I took one arm and he took the other and we just...you know... make a wish...we pulled and 'pop'. In it went. The doc said it's all fixed."

"But...", I said, "I didn't feel a thing. Wow."

Clif raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh, you felt it alright. Dude, you screamed."

It's called Conscious Sedation. The patient feels the pain but does not remember feeling the pain. They use it for very short bursts of pain. Very strange thing.

I got up right away, signed out of the hospital and Clif drove me home. John called us on the set radio and so did the Director. Both expressed their wishes that the accident had not happened I thanked them just as we pulled into my driveway. My wife was waiting and she looked very worried. It told her it was nothing but a dislocated shoulder and it was all fixed.

She asked, "How far did you fall?"

"Not a fall, really," I said. "Just a slip." She looked surprised, relieved and a little pissed.

Apparently, she had been woken up by my mom and dad about two hours earlier. Clif had asked them to move my vehicle from the set to my house. My wife heard them on our porch bickering about whether to wake her or not.

"Tell me what?” she asked them as she opened the door.

They were surprised to see her. They apologized and said, "Everything is alright. Mitch is in the hospital but he's okay. He fell out of a helicopter." Hence, the worried look when I arrived.

It's one of those stories you love to tell your relatives at family gatherings.