Financial crisis erupted in March. The Fed slashed rates at an emergency meeting on March 3rd - and then began aggressively expanding its holdings/balance sheet (creating market liquidity). Even from a "flow of funds" perspective, it was one extraordinary quarter.
Total Non-Financial Debt ((NFD)) surged a nominal $1.597 trillion during the first quarter ($6.379 trillion seasonally-adjusted and annualized!) to $54.325 trillion. This was the strongest quarter of NFD growth on record (blowing past Q1 2004's $1.234 trillion). Indeed, Q1 growth surpassed full-year NFD expansions for the years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013. This pushed one-year