Cancer Patient Gains Friend For Life After Airline Employee's Kind Act
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It has been a whirlwind week for Stacy Hurt.
Seven days ago, she told us about a very important piece of lost luggage that didn't arrive when she took an earlier Southwest Airlines flight home to Pittsburgh. But, the lost suitcase isn't her biggest issue.
"Cancer is so hard and battling it -- it takes everything that you have," she said.
Enter Sarah Rowan, a Southwest Airlines employee. Thanks to her exceptional act of kindness, Hurt got those important things back in time for a chemotherapy appointment.
In her lost luggage was her rosary and medicine that helps in her lengthy battle against colon cancer.
"I am doing well so I want to keep that routine," Hurt said. "You know, I don't want to jinx myself. I don't need any bad luck right now, and so that's where my panic set in."
Hurt shared how Rowan didn't just find her missing suitcase. She then drove it to her house at 3 a.m. and left in on her porch so Hurt would have it for the next morning's appointment.
After our story aired, Rowan's act of kindness literally has been shared and viewed thousands of times around the world.
"When you work in a company, you mostly hear the bad, and so I wanted to tell them the good -- and I wanted to tell Southwest how awesome she was," Hurt said. "The rest of it, and the kindness and the goodness has all just been the icing on the cake, really."
The 46-year-old Hurt works as a cancer patient advocate, but now she says she has another reason to keep up the fight - her newfound friendship with Rowan.
"We will be friends for life. I told Sarah she is stuck with me. I told her I will be going to her wedding. So, whether she likes it or not, I'm going. I will live to see it, and I will be there," she said.
Perhaps Rowan understood Stacy's predicament on a personal level. She lost her father to cancer.
"You never know what that person on the other side of the phone is going through," Hurt said. She paused for a moment, then went on. "So, take the extra minute. Go the extra mile. Do something good for them. You never know how it will impact their life."