A  C  C  E  S  S AirCraft Casualty Emotional Support Services
Photo Album new!	Program History and Purpose On July 17th 1996, Heidi Snow said good-bye to her fiancé, Michel, for the last time. She was to meet him in Europe a few weeks later. Heidi never got that chance because Michel was killed on Trans World Airlines Flight 800 when it crashed over Long Island Sound. Two hundred and twenty nine people perished with him on that Paris-bound flight, leaving thousands of loved ones in unspeakable grief and torment; their lives forever changed. In the immediate aftermath, the American Red Cross, the airlines, and other organizations provided crisis intervention to families and friends of the victims. However, help was only temporary and after a few weeks, these disaster teams disbanded and the survivors dispersed. When the initial shock subsided, the agonizing process of grieving intensified, and Heidi needed a place to turn. Like the others affected by an air crash, she found it hard to cope with what had happened. She desperately needed to find someone who understood the growing agony and utter emptiness left behind in the wake of her fiancé's death. She and the others scattered around the world, felt abandoned, isolated from caring individuals who have experienced a similar tragic loss, with no organization to connect them. How could anyone who was not personally affected by this disaster understand the enormity of their tragedy? Heidi realized that what was missing for people like her was a long-term, non-political, and non-crash specific peer grief support network for victims and survivors of all air disasters. After receiving an enthusiastic response to her idea from hundreds of survivors, Heidi founded the AIRCRAFT CASUALTY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES (ACCESS) in the fall of 1996. The AIRCRAFT CASUALTY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES sole focus is to aid and facilitate in the grieving process of people who have been affected by an air crash. By providing access to emotional understanding and assistance to friends and families of crash victims and survivors, ACCESS helps people cope with this nightmare. It is the goal of ACCESS to provide understanding and comfort to victims as they prepare for the future and overcome the challenges that lay ahead, with the support of peers who have traveled a similar journey.
A C C E S S  1202 Lexington Ave. Suite 335, NY, NY 10028  1-877-227-6435 info@accesshelp.org ©2000