Many years ago, when Mom, Dad, and I went to a local drugstore to pick up a few things, we got separated in the store. Mom and I wanted to look at the greeting cards, so my dad decided to meander around near the front of the store, which was an aisle or two up from where we were.
At one point, we heard a commotion, which included loud voices near the front registers and what sounded like someone rattling the glass front doors. It sounded like they were getting robbed. I heard someone say, "Calm down." Was that the robber? I wondered.
My heart started racing, knowing we only had seconds to act. I tried to get my dad's attention, as he was in my line of vision, but he waved me off as though I was interrupting a TV show he liked to watch.
So I quickly turned my attention to Mom, whispering to her that I had a rough idea of how to get her to safety. I didn't work in that store, but I had worked in one like it, so I knew the general layout, where the back exit probably was, and that there was likely a landline phone in the warehouse part of the store where the overstock merch was kept.
I didn't know if the reason my dad was staying put was to try and be a hero or if he was just being his generally curious self, but all I could think about at that point was getting Mom out of there and using the phone to call 911 (this was in the days before cellphones). I didn't know what I'd do after that.
As it turned out, though, what had happened was that store security had stopped a shoplifter and was preventing him from exiting the store, hence the locked glass doors and loud voices. This was during a time before it was fashionable for businesses to stop confronting shoplifters and let them walk out the door with whatever they wanted.
Everyone got out safely, including the shoplifter, who left handcuffed and in the back of a police cruiser.
After that incident, I didn't have many more thoughts about what I would do in a similar situation until after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I was in NYC that day and was supposed to have flown out that evening to return home.
It was only after I got back, got settled into a normalish routine, started dealing with my survivor's guilt, and learned more about what happened on the planes that were hijacked that I began to think, "What would I have done" had I been on one of the planes that the Islamofascist terrorist hijackers had taken over?
There are many stories of plane passengers who were heroes that day, with the ones who are referenced most often being the Flight 93 heroes. There were Todd Beamer and Mark Bingham, of course, but among the others was a flight attendant, 38-year-old North Carolina native Sandy Bradshaw, a mother of two, who told her husband on a call she made to him that she and several others had boiled water on the United Airlines flight in hopes that they could use it on the hijackers. The last thing they talked about was how she and others were getting ready to rush first class.
Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, Sandy Bradshaw lived there with her husband, Philip, their two toddlers, and his daughter. Bradshaw was a flight attendant and Philip was a pilot. Together, they had visited Australia, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. After her children were born,… pic.twitter.com/r8TJhp8p1s
— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) January 25, 2026
Would I have been too distraught and/or fearful to join in on the efforts to stop the hijackers? Same for the riveting stories that are coming out about the passengers and crew members who saved the FlyDubai plane and everyone on it amid an attempted hijacking.
Would I have had the guts to do what high school principal Kirk Moore did in Oklahoma, when he confronted an armed, potential mass shooter and stopped him with his bare hands?
There's something to be said for a survivor's instinct kicking into high gear in such situations, and I feel like that's what would happen with me. But I pray to God I never have to find out.
