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Sarasota Native Is Instant Celebrity With Crash Photo

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By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 16, 2009

Janis Krums was just trying to catch the last ferry out of Manhattan so he could get to a meeting in New Jersey.

"I jumped aboard, like you see in a movie," says the 23-year-old from Latvia who grew up in Sarasota.
Minutes later, thanks to fate and the power of social networking, Krums would become part of history.

"I sat down and was looking at my phone and passing time and someone said, 'Look, there is a plane in the Hudson,'" he says. "I assumed it was a small plane, like a Cessna. But I looked up and saw it was a huge Airbus."

The now-famous US Airways Flight 1549 to be exact, flying out of LaGuardia on a trip to Charlotte, N.C.

Krums, whose start-up business, Elementz Nutrition, provides "all-natural performance-based supplements for elite athletes," says that, living in New York City, his first thought was that terrorists took down the plane.

His next thought was more like, "wow."

"You don't see a plane in the Hudson every day," he says. "I was on my Twitter account as I was looking up."

Twitter is an online social networking site that allows users to instantly communicate where they are, what they are thinking and what they are doing. Users can also share photos and video. Users can sign up to follow the postings of others.

At this point, Krums was looking at people in yellow lifejackets standing on the wing of an airplane that crash landed in the river. The ferry he was on was the first to arrive at the crash scene.

"I have an option where you can press a button for the camera cell phone. I took the picture and quickly posted it."

Then he typed a few words.

"There's a plane in the Hudson," he wrote. "I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy."

"After that, it was forgotten," he says.

At least by Krums.

Things got busy on the ferry. Crew members helped people out of the water. Krums and other passengers helped hoist ropes and offer up jackets and other clothing to the 20 or 30 survivors pulled aboard. Krums talked to some of the passengers. They were in shock. Some were crying.

Meanwhile, Krums' Twitter message with the picture was bouncing around Internet. It appeared on websites, including TBO.com and in newspapers around the world.

Krums became a celebrity of the modern age. He went from a few hundred followers to more than 2,000.

He says he has been on the phone, talking with reporters, almost constantly since.
'"It is wild," he says. "I took that picture without thinking."

Krums who says he has several elite athletes from baseball, football and tennis lined up to be spokespeople for his company, hasn't fully pondered how his new notoriety might affect business.

"We will see if this helps business," he says by phone, leaving a BBC interview and heading for Battery Park for another. "I am sure it won't hurt."

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