As Delta Air Lines Flight 191 went down, Robert and Debbie Katz sat in Row 42, grabbing each other and bracing for the impact.

"Just hold on, baby, everything is going to be all right," the Fort Lauderdale man told his wife.

But after the airplane crashed near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Katz looked around and his wife was gone. A seat belt had kept him in his seat. Her seat was empty.

Using the upturned rows of seats in the tail section as a ladder, Katz climbed out of the wreckage and searched for his wife. When he found her, he thought she was dead. Katz credits a firefighter whose name he does not know with reviving her.

Debbie Katz, 40, was in serious condition Sunday at Parkland Memorial Hospital. She had severe head injuries, a fractured neck and internal injuries.

Her husband walked away from the crash with minor bruises and a gash in his mid-section where the seat belt had confined him. Katz, 42, president of Michelin and Co., a private investment-banking firm in Boca Raton, left his wife's side Sunday at the Dallas hospital to talk about the crash.

"I remember everything," Katz said Sunday. "We were coming in for a normal landing and we were making our final approach. We ran into a very bad storm, the worst I've ever seen in airline travel."

Katz said the plane was badly jolted and seemed to go out of control. "At one point the plane was falling straight down like a runaway elevator or a roller-coaster."

Then the plane crashed and cut a swath across a field at the end of a runway.

"We were holding on as tight as we possibly could until the plane came to rest. It felt like the plane was trying to leave the ground.

"There was a terrible explosion. Fire was coming down the body of the craft. The plane split up. We ended up on the left side of the craft. We had been on the right. The part of the plane that had been on fire went off in one direction and we were sitting on the other.

"I looked around and my wife wasn't with me. Maybe somehow she unintentionally opened the seat belt or it broke."

Katz found her directly below the plane.

"She was not conscious," he said. "At the time I did not think she was alive -- I was positive she was dead.

"Somebody dragged me away from the body of the aircraft because they thought it was going to explode. I was able to break away from them and go back. I was just sitting there crying and I saw that her mouth moved a fraction and I knew she was alive.

"I went to get paramedics and it seemed like it took the longest time possible because they were working in other areas and the plane was still burning. I finally got hold of a fireman who was able to give her CPR. She was losing color and was practically dead. It took a very long time. It was way over an hour from the time the plane crashed to the time we got to the hospital."

Katz said his wife does not remember the crash.

"I'm just glad she is alive in any condition," he said.

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