Comforting Airline Employee Gets Surprise Thanks

Dec. 23, 2008 — -- What was supposed to be an uneventful holiday trip to visit relatives in California turned into a life-altering experience for Missy Hebert and her fiancé, Rod Reynolds.

The Wisconsin pair had taken a bus to Chicago, only to face delay after delay at the airport on their way to visit family last Christmas. When the two finally were airborne, Hebert, who was 23 weeks pregnant with twins, had a frightening crisis at 35,000 feet.

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"I had a really bad backache and stomachache," she said.

"She went to the bathroom and came back and said she was bleeding," Reynolds said. "I was scared more than I'd ever been scared before. The feeling was very helpless being on an airplane 35,000 feet in between, you know, Chicago and Los Angeles."

Hebert was hemorrhaging and thought she might lose her unborn sons.

"I literally got on my knees in the bathroom and prayed to God: 'Please, please don't take my babies from me,'" Hebert said. "It was very surreal. It was like you see in the movies.

"I thought we were so far from L.A. that something bad was going to happen on the plane," she added.

The flight crew made an emergency diversion and landed the plane in Denver so Hebert could get medical help.

"We were all alone in Denver. We knew nobody. We had no family. We were by ourselves and we knew at that point that these babies, they weren't ready. They weren't ready to come yet. It was very scary," Reynolds said.

When Reynolds and Hebert got off the plane, an American Airline customer service agent named Cynthia Comfort was there to greet them and help them out.

"We were the luckiest people in the world because the employee they sent over was Cynthia Comfort. And how funny her last name was Comfort," Hebert said.

Hebert and Reynolds surprised Comfort on "Good Morning America" today to thank her for all her help during their difficult time.

Her customer service went beyond the terminal gates.