What would you do if you faced danger while on the job?

To most, it was an ordinary flight in Alaska Airlines bound to San Francisco from Seattle. But for one of the flight attendants, it was a day she came face to face with a human trafficking incident. This is the story of our story’s hero.

Sheila Fredrick came into that flight as always, not knowing that day would be different.

As she did her routine of checking the passengers before takeoff, she noticed an unusual pair of passengers. A man was wearing a business suit looking all fine and neat, while beside him was a teenage girl who looked beaten, with greasy blonde hair. Not to be prejudice and all, but Sheila sensed something was off.

She tried to talk to the teenage girl, but the man stopped her.

That confirmed Sheila’s intuition. Why would this man not allow her to talk to the teenage girl? She tried to make eye contact with the teenager but couldn’t. The girl often looked away as if something wrong would happen to her if she said a word.

Sheila didn’t want to brush the situation off simply. She thought she should do something.

She asked God for a sign on how to help this girl whose life might be in danger. That’s when she dug in her pocket and found a paper and pencil. She wrote a note, left it in one of the lavatories along with the pencil, and locked it.

By the time the crew were set to give in-flight refreshments, Sheila took her chance.

One of the attendants was talking to the man, who was now distracted. Sheila looked at the teenage girl who finally looked at her. She mouthed ‘bathroom’ and did a pencil sign with her finger. The teenage girl nodded, and Sheila hoped the girl understood the instructions. She headed back to her station near the lavatory.

She finally saw the teenage girl heading the lavatory escorted by the strange man.

He said that she needed to go to the bathroom. Sheila immediately jumped in and told them she could use the crew’s lavatory (the one she locked). She stood outside the lavatory with the man and prayed that the girl could write her a little note. The girl went out, the pair returned to their seat, and Sheila immediately went in to check.

Thankfully, the girl wrote ‘I need help’ on the paper.

She immediately called the pilot via intercom and explained the situation. The pilot called San Francisco and asked for security to meet them upon arrival. What supposedly was a short flight seemed like forever.

The moment the plane landed, security boarded the plane and arrested the man.

Without Sheila’s quick thinking, we’d never know what would happen to that girl. Today, that girl is already in college, and they still keep in contact with Sheila.

Because of Sheila’s heroics, flight attendants were trained to spot red flags in their passengers to hopefully save passengers from human trafficking.

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Source: ABC4, Good Morning Britain YouTube Channel, NBC News