I have to be honest… as an EMT I have a lot of faith in my brothers and sisters in other cities and states to make the miracles happen, as we have done so often ourselves.

Originally when I heard about the 6 year old boy flying over the Colorado skies in a UFO, I thought it was a gag and someone had hacked the news station Twitter account.  In my mind I told myself that the kid obviously was on his way to Avitaween.

I mean really… how would a 6 year old boy be able to build an “experimental craft” and take off in it without anyone realizing?  Is he part of the Explorers and channeling an teenage alien on an inter-galactic joyride?  I thought it was a prank for sure…

… until I read it on the actual station website, which ruled out the twitter account being hacked…

Honestly, I felt really bad for the parents.  Even after it turned out that some “male” had built the ship and not the boy, the parents apparently are eccentric storm chasers, and even appeared on the reality-show called Wife Swap, I still a serious twinge for what the parents were going through… but somehow I knew that it would be okay… because I knew that the Responders out there were going to make the magic happen.

I watched live as both Twitter and the UFO slowed down.  The hashtag #BalloonBoy spread through the Twitterverse like a virus, with the load of updates inundating their servers and leaving anyone who wanted updated news watching it streaming.  The UFO was brought to a landing by a Sheriff’s Deputy who chased it down on foot…

It was when they said that he wasn’t in the vehicle, and there were rumors that something had fallen out along the way (possibly from as high as 7,000 feet) that just made my heart sink.

The truth is that they always don’t have happy endings with Oprah appearances and movie of the week deals.

We hope for it.

We plan on it.

We have almost come to expect it, and are shocked on the occasions it doesn’t turn out well.

But in truth there are absolutely no guarantees in how things will turn out in cases like this.

Of course, the real story of The Flight Of The Falcon Heene is that it was more like The Not So Flight Of The Falcon Heene.  He was hiding in the attic or a garage or something the whole time that the balloon was being chased by law enforcement, EMS, the fire department, and the Colorado National Guard.  He remained in hiding even after the balloon had landed, and was apparently found by his father.  The fact the family had been featured on the reality show Wife Swap lead to speculation that it was a publicity stunt… but whatever.

The important point is that Falcon Heene is home with his parents.  His ending is one of the happy ones that may garner an Oprah appearance and maybe a few reruns of the Wife Swap episode.  Luck was with both his parents and the world that watched events unfold yesterday.

If only we could all be so lucky….