A Frontier Airlines flight attendant went out of her way to care for a passenger in need. That passenger, Shayna Saurber, is 33 weeks pregnant. The flight attendant, Kirsten Laufenburg, helped her through an emergency landing right here in St. Louis.
"As soon as we got up in the air, I started feeling a little weird," Saurber said.
Saurber and her 17-month-old daughter Lilli were flying Frontier from Denver to Cincinnati when their Laufenburg noticed Saurber wasn't looking too great.
"I'm like, you're not having that baby on this plane," Laufenburg said, "and it just so happened that the lady sitting next to her, across the aisle, was a nurse practitioner."
"She was counting my contractions and she's like yeah you're in labor," Saurber said.
They landed in St. Louis.
"As they took me out of the airplane, everyone was saying that they're praying for me and that just touched my heart," Saurber said.
Not only did she and her daughter exit the plane, Laufenburg did, too.
"She just was rubbing my back," Saurber said. "She was telling me she was going to be there for me."
Together, they went to a St. Louis hospital and learned it wasn't quite time for baby number two.
"At that point, it was like well you can't get on a plane and she says no, no I'm fine and I said I'm playing the mom card here," Laufenburg said. "You're not getting on a plane!"
So out of her own pocket, Laufenburg paid for a rental car.
"She drove me all the way back to Cincinnati with my daughter," Saurber said.
At one point during their journey, the women learned they share a special bond. Saurber's husband was deployed to Korea. Laufenburg is a former military wife.
"We've been in touch ever since and I asked her to be the God mom to my new baby that's coming," Saurber said.
"I've got chills just thinking about it," Laufenburg said. "I'm so excited. That's such an honor."
Saurber is scheduled to have a C-section in three to four weeks. Laufenburg plans to fly to Ohio for the baby's birth.
