by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:13 PM ET, Mon June 25, 2018
In a world full of so much negativity, passengers and crew members on an Alaska Airlines flight last week stepped up to help a blind and deaf man who was traveling alone.
One passenger, in particular, a 15-year-old girl named Clara Daly, stepped up huge to assist her fellow traveler. Daly was supposed to fly from Boston to Los Angeles with her mother when their flight was canceled and they were rebooked on a journey to Portland.
As the Daly family boarded the connecting flight, they noticed a man, identified as Tim Cook, saying goodbye to his sister using sign language in his hands so he could feel her words. That's when the passengers realized Cook was blind and deaf.
Alaska flight attendants called over the public-address system for anyone who knew American Sign Language (ASL) so they could properly communicate with the man. Daly, who had been studying ASL for the last year, rang the attendants and said she would help.
Cook met Daly and attendants noted how excited he got when he realized someone would talk to him during the flight. Daly spoke to him twice in order to help him with common tasks and spent the last 30 minutes of the journey simply chatting with the man in order to make him feel comfortable.
Another Alaska passenger named Lynette Scribner shared the story on Facebook, and the post has gone viral. Daly's mother told Scribner she believed their original flight was canceled so her daughter would be able to help Cook during the trip to Portland.
When a service provider from Brookdale Senior Living picked up Cook from the airport to take him home, he told them his experience on the Alaska flight was "the best trip he's ever taken."
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