SWISSAIR FLIGHT 111
Swissair victim had survived bullets, bombs & plagues
By Chris Olert, Associated Press, 09/03/98
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Mystic physician among plane crash victims
Tara Nelson devoted her life to helping people.
As a naturopathic physician in Mystic, Conn., she spent her days trying to heal patients with herbs and other natural remedies. Her family said she spent much of her time off trying to help anyone she could.
When her plane went down in the ocean off Nova Scotia Wednesday, Nelson was on her way to France to help her sister with the birth of her baby.
"Everybody has their own Princess Diana. She was our Princess Diana,'' said Nelson's aunt, Laurie Michel, of Tenafly, N.J.
"This is monstrous,'' Michel said.
Nelson was one of 229 people aboard a Swissair jetliner that crashed into the Atlantic Wednesday night after taking off from Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Flight 111 was headed to Geneva; there were no survivors.
Another victim of the crash was an employee at a company in Stamford. The person worked for Warburg Dillon Read, the investment backing division of UBS AG, formerly known as Swiss Bank, the company said. Spokeswoman Joan Moschello said the company would not release the victim's name or other information until the person's family is notified.
Nelson practiced naturopathy, which uses homeopathy, herbal therapies and other alternative medicines. For the last four years, she worked in Mystic at Natura Medica, The Center for Natural Medicine.
She left the practice a little over a month ago and planned to open her own practice in New York City in October, said Deirdre O'Connor, her former partner at Natura Medica.
"She was a very dedicated physician,'' said O'Connor.
"She was very passionate about naturopathic medicine, and not only taught the principles ... but also lived them in her own life,'' O'Connor said.
"She was dedicated to excellent health for herself and for our patients. She exercised a lot, ate well and took good care of herself. She lived what she taught.''
Michel said Nelson, 35, who grew up in Manhattan, was in the process of moving back to the city to open her practice. She boarded Flight 111 planning to meet her fiance in Geneva. The couple then planned to travel to Grenoble, France, where Nelson planned to help her sister, who is 9 months pregnant.
"She had everything she dreamed of _ she was getting married, starting her practice, going to see her sister, just to be there at the birth. She and her sister were more than best friends. They talked every day. It was unreal how close they were,'' Michel said.
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, 09/03/98
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NEW YORK (AP) - Pierce Joseph Gerety Jr. was born into the country club set, but chose a nomad's life - sleeping in tents with refugees all over the world.
Ingrid Acevedo loved to laugh and dance and sing. And she loved her job at UNICEF.
The two were among the 136 Americans killed when 229 people died in the crash of a Swissair jet Wednesday. They were enroute to Geneva on business.
Gerety would have turned 57 on Monday.
''He was constantly seeing death,'' his brother, Amherst College President Tom Gerety, told The Associated Press on Thursday.
For the last 16 years, Gerety worked in the office of the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.
In the lakes region of Africa, he was in charge of helping 1.2 million refugees. That included the precarious sleight-of hand to keep Burundian rebels from using his camps as cover on the Tanzania border.
''We honestly worried about him,'' said Tom Gerety. ''Both he and Marie (his wife) had been shot at and missed airplanes that had been bombed.''
''We never thought he would die on a flight to Geneva ... never that it would happen at the hands of Swissair, one of the safest airlines in the world.''
Seething refugee camps are a galaxy away from Gerety's childhood in Fairfield, Conn., where his family belonged to the Pequot Yacht Club.
He graduated with honors from Yale and Harvard Law School, worked for Legal Aid in New York City and for the International Rescue Committee before joining the United Nations.
For fun, Gerety - the oldest of four boys - joined relatives in sea kayaking or windsurfing.
He met his wife, Marie de la Soudiere, while studying philosophy in Paris.
''He took a tremendous joy in the moral frontiers of refugee work,'' Tom Gerety said.
Gerety's assignments included refugee camps in Afghanistan, Cambodia and Thailand. His most recent African assignment found him negotiating with a rebel leader for the release of kidnapped UN workers in Somalia.
In addition to his wife and brother, Gerety is survived by three children, Pierce, Sebastian and Maeve; his mother, Helen; and two other brothers, Miles and Peter.
Acevedo's co-workers at the U.S. Committee for UNICEF last saw her on Wednesday night, when she left her New York office for the airport and a business trip to Geneva.
''She was young, terrific, had a fabulous sense of humor, practically skipped into work on most days,'' said Charles Young, president of the committee where Acevedo was appointed head of public relations less than a year ago.
Acevedo, 32, an only child, was born in New York to Dominican parents; her father died a few years ago. She had worked in public relations for the fashion industry and for Bread for The World, a Christian group that works against hunger, before coming to UNICEF.
''I unfortunately had to tell her mother this morning and part of her mother's comments was that the pain she felt was how happy her daughter had become in the work she was doing,'' said Young.
Acevedo was ''very in love with the city,'' Young said, and spent her time outside of work dancing, listening to music and had recently traveled to Spain for the first time.
''Things were going very well for Ingrid,'' he said. ''It's very hard to imagine.''
