Shelia Fedrick, 49, noticed a girl with greasy blonde hair, believed to be about 14 or 15, sitting next to a well dressed older man on an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to San Francisco.
Fedrick said the difference in age and appearance between the travelling companions seemed suspicious to her. But the flight attendant was especially struck by the demeanor of the girl who looked like “she had been through pure hell”.
When Fedrick decided to approach the pair the girl apparently refused to speak or make eye contact.
The man sitting next to the girl kept interrupting and became defensive as the stewardess tried to make conversation.
“Something in the back of my mind said something is not right,” Frederick told local news station WTSP. It was then that Fedrick quickly came up with a plan.
She managed to convince the girl to go to the bathroom where the flight attendant had left her a note stuck to the mirror.
“She wrote back on the note,” Fedrick told NBC News. “She wrote on the note she needed help.”
Fedrick immediately reported the man to the pilot who then alerted the police. By the time the flight touched down in San Francisco cops were waiting at the terminal.
It was then revealed the girl was the victim of human trafficking and Fedrick had just saved her life. Fedrick told WTSP: “I’ve been a flight attendant for ten years and it’s like I am going all the way back to when I was in training.
"And I was like, I could have seen these young girls and young boys and didn’t even know. If you see something, say something.”
The teenage girl is thought to have been a victim of human trafficking, something flight attendants are now trained to look out for.
Fedrick said she has kept in contact with the girl who is now attending college. “I put my phone number on the note that I left for her and I guess she memorized it, so a few weeks later, she called me,” Frederick said.
It’s estimated that more than 50,000 women and girls are trafficked into the United States for prostitution each year, reports The Washington Post.
Last year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 2,000 human traffickers and identified 400 victims. Flight attendants are now being trained to spot for signs of human trafficking as part of their training, reported airlineamb.org.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2794278/air-stewardess-saved-girl-human-trafficking/
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/02/07/alaska-flight-attendant-praised-for-reportedly-saving-human-trafficking-victim.html
Edited by
Lpdon
on Mon 02/06/17 10:04 PM
