As the year draws to a close, Toronto Star reporters reflect on the stories that left an indelible mark on their own lives in 2007. One in a series.

I first encountered Philippe Lacaille in the pages of the Toronto Star.

He was interviewed extensively in the aftermath of the crash of an Air France jet at Pearson International Airport in August 2005.

His was a riveting account of escaping the burning aircraft with his wife and two children. They were among 309 people who have been cast as the survivors of a miracle because everyone got out of the burning plane alive.

When the Transportation Safety Board of Canada released its final report on the accident earlier this month, I looked up Lacaille to find out how he and his family were faring since the Star last reported on them in 2005.

His answer was as paradoxical as the event itself. Of course the very fact they were alive was a miracle. But make no mistake: He told me the crash was a catastrophe that still reverberates with his family every day.

They love each other, but Lacaille and his wife, Veronique, are divorcing. Something like a plane crash has a way of "crystallizing" things, he told me in words so matter-of-fact they underscored his obvious sadness.

Their son and daughter have become withdrawn and angry. Lacaille suffers terrible guilt, blaming himself for allowing his children to board the flight. He is quite certain their behaviour is more deeply rooted than teenaged mood swings.

His own nightmare, told to Star reporters just after the crash, had not changed much in its frequency or his account in 2 1/2 years.

"It always involves a plane flying at low altitudes in funny configurations, sometimes upside-down, sometimes sideways, the way it was with the wings hitting the ground," he said.

Even awake, he can't escape the image of the orange aura behind the head of his daughter, Emilie, who was seated apart from the family.

"The only thing I had on my mind was to get my daughter under me so we could all die together," he told me.

Despite the depression that still dogs him – a condition typical of post-traumatic stress sufferers – Lacaille strives to be positive. Every week he takes his healing hands to a Toronto shelter offering reiki treatments, a therapy that channels energy through touch.

Even though he has more reason than most to be wary of journalists, he freely gave me the human side of the crash story, the dimension that was scarcely acknowledged in the final investigation report in December.

He patiently answered all my questions even though he told me he would do everything he could to shield his children from the story I was writing.

When I asked how a sophisticated French pharmaceutical executive had come to practise yoga and reiki in the Toronto suburb of Aurora, Lacaille's answer was surprisingly simple – reiki and yoga were just an extension of his career, which had always been about helping people feel well.

Post-traumatic stress is an invisible injury but no less real than broken bones, according to one of the lawyers representing more than half the Air France crash survivors, who have launched a class action suit.

"I understand the way (the crash) was reported. No one died, no one was paralyzed, no one was burned," said Paul Miller.

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But it's all about perspective.

"I consider people who are so petrified of getting into an elevator I have to go down to my lobby to meet with them – I consider that serious."

One passenger was just finishing off a PhD when he had the misfortune to board Air France Flight 358 in Paris. Miller said, "It took him 18 months before he would hold his newborn baby because he was depressed."