by Kylie Handler, editor
A woman in active duty for the Air Force received the call from her family on Apr. 2 that everyone dreads.
Her father’s health was failing… and he only had a few days to live.
Brittany Bunker spoke with her leadership and was granted emergency leave to fly out the next day and go home to see him. But after a series of unfortunate events with airlines, Bunker was left with no way home — until a selfless patriot in the airport sprang into action.
Bunker was scheduled for four connecting flights that would have gotten her to her destination at midnight.
Unfortunately, her first flight was ran late and she missed her second flight. She began to get overwhelmed, but was quickly calmed down by a flight attendant that assured her another flight was headed where she needed to be.
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“Before I boarded my second flight, a man came up to me because I had Shiva (shes my service dog) and showed me pictures of his Malinois,” she wrote on Facebook.
The man explained to Bunker that he was in the Guard and grew up in the same area as she did.
Before her second flight had landed, Bunker found out that her last flight home was canceled.
“As I’m getting off the plane (it’s about 9:30pm) I’m texting and talking on the phone with my family trying to figure out how to get home that night. Then 2 flight attendants approach me saying they were able to get me a flight that leaves at 11:30pm,” she wrote on Facebook.
As she was talking to the flight attendants, her family was trying to find a way to travel 5 hour to pick her up from the Chicago airport and bring her back home.
“Then, the man I met before boarding my second flight came up to me while he was on the phone. He told me he was arranging for a professional driving company to drive me from the airport straight to my house, all at his expense,” she explained in her Facebook post.
Bunker was nervous at first to accept his generous offer, but she explained that the man showed the receipts to the flight attendants and sent them a picture of the car, license plate, and driver once the driver arrived at the airport.
She explained, “Before I left, he said all he wanted in return was for me to let him know I made it home.”
The driver drove Bunker 5 hours from Chicago airport to her front door step, she made it home by 3am on Apr. 4 — in time to see her father one last time.
“I was able to get the man’s name and he had already given me his number. The driver told me that it cost the man almost $900,” Bunker wrote. “Thanks to this man’s selflessness, I was able to make it home and say goodbye to my father before he passed a day later on the morning of April 5,” she continued.
There are still many selfless, generous human beings in this world. And thanks to this kind man, an active duty service member was able to make it home before her father passed away.
This kind act teaches other that there are plenty of times we can choose to help others, and that we should always pay it forward.
–Kylie Handler is a news editor for The Horn News