According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, over 1.92 million pieces of luggage were mishandled by American airlines in the year 2015.
In the best of these cases, the situations result in some annoyance and anger— oftentimes, the things that are lost are just clothes and cosmetics. Other times, however, things that are much more important somehow end up getting misplaced…
Stacy Hurt, a Pittsburgh woman, had not been in the best of spirits.
On her 44th birthday, Stacey had officially been diagnosed with colon cancer. As a result of this diagnosis, she had to reschedule a flight home to Pittsburgh in order to make it to a chemotherapy appointment.
Although Stacy had been moved to an earlier flight, her luggage had remained on the original aircraft— a flight which had then been canceled.
Stacy was devastated.
Her bags had been full of important items for chemotherapy, things like medications for side effects and a rosary. There were also emotionally comforting items as well, like favorite clothes and slippers.
She tells PEOPLE, “I panicked. I thought of all the things I had in that suitcase that I needed for chemotherapy the very next day. My world was rocked […] At that point, I started to cry and get very emotional. You can’t control cancer so you control the things you carry with you for good luck and make you feel safe. “
In a tizzy, Stacy contacted the Pittsburgh International Airport, talking to a young employee named Sarah Rowan.
Sarah tells her that she will track the incoming package, but if it arrives past a certain time a courier will not be available— which, of course, is what ends up happening.
Although there are no couriers, Sarah is still at the airport, and seeing Stacy’s bags arrive, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
The 27-year-old employee looks up Stacy’s address in the system and personally delivers the luggage to her door at 3:30 a.m.
On top of the bags, she leaves a note written on a napkin, which is discovered by Stacey alongside the bags the following morning.
It turns out Sarah’s father had had a long battle against Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia, and she saw many similarities to him in Stacy.
She tells PEOPLE, “He was the strongest man I’ve ever known. A lot of what I see in Stacy is what I saw in my dad. I felt a very strong connection with her from the start.”
Stacey is completely overwhelmed by Sarah’s kind-hearted actions, taking to Facebook to tell Southwest Airlines about their stellar employee.
She writes, in part, “Not only did [Sarah] personally drive my luggage to my house at 3 am, when it came in (the last courier for the night had left), but she put this note in my suitcase. When I read it, I cried.”
Sarah and Stacy met for the first time on August 9th, 2017.
Of the experience, Stacy tells PEOPLE, “Being in the presence of her beautiful spirit was awesome. To meet the woman who helped me during that hurried and panicked night— she’s my guardian angel, she’s my light in the darkness. I mean it, from the bottom of my heart.”
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