[b]Introducing [color=ed1c24]Tammie Wagner[/color], drug addict:[/b]

The first indication Tammie had that all was not right in the world was when she found herself laying on a blanket on the cold ground before a roaring fire. She'd been asleep when the aircraft went dark and began its descent. Actually, that's not precisely true: she'd been passed out after taking a handful of sedatives she'd stolen from a lady's purse in the terminal.  It had been a dangerous thing to do, of course -- taking the drugs, not stealing them -- but honestly, if Tammie had known they were going to crash, she probably would have welcomed death. 

After being picked up during a narcotics bust, Tammie was on her way to a drug rehabilitation center outside Seattle. The Los Angeles District Court had given her a choice between rehab' or jail; Paula Wagner had put up the $45,000 for the private center 1,100 miles away to keep her daughter out of the decrepit County system and -- Tammie fully believed -- out of her mother's hair. 

She was very confused upon regaining consciousness, of course, but it was soon explained to her that the plane had crashed. A couple of guys had gotten her out of fuselage and over to the fire, and now an older woman name [color=red]Helen Hartford[/color] was looking over her. Tammie got water and some airline snack food, then she got what she really wanted: booze. She was only given one of those little bottles, but as she listened to so flight attendant talking, she managed to beg, borrow, and steal another four of them, which she downed without delay.

Tammie was soon feeling no pain. She laid down again, wrapped in someone's warm coat and covered by a pair of thin airline blankets. As she drifted off to sleep, she couldn't help but wonder whether the coat in which she curled up into a fetal ball has belonged to one of the dead ... not that she cared. For all Tammie knew, the dead were the lucky ones.