'I breastfed a stranger's baby inflight': Flight attendant helps hungry infant
(KTVU) - A flight attendant is being celebrated for coming to the rescue of a crying and hungry infant when the baby's bottle ran out.
Last week, Patrisha Organo said she was feeling good as she conducted a flight check as part of her qualifications to become a cabin crew evaluator.
She said all went well, the plane took off smoothly, and then she heard the heart-wrenching wail of a baby who was clearly in anguish.
Organo described it as "a cry that will make you want to do anything to help."
So she approached the infant's mother and asked if she could assist in any way.
"Teary-eyed, she told me that she ran out of formula milk. Passengers started looking and staring at the tiny, fragile crying infant," Organo explained on Facebook.
With no formula on board to offer, the flight attendant, who is also a mother to an infant, considered the options.
"I felt a pinch in my heart... I thought to myself, there's only one thing I could offer and that's my own milk. And so I offered," she wrote in her post.
With help from another crew member, she brought the infant back to the plane's galley where she fed the hungry child.
She looked over to the mother who was overcome with gratitude.
"I saw the relief on her mother's eyes," Organo wrote. "I continued to feed the baby until she fell asleep," she added.
Organo's story has gone viral. After sharing it on Facebook last week, her post as received more than 185K likes and some 9K comments.
People have been clearly moved by the gesture of one mother who went out of her way to help another.
The responses of praise and support have been flooding in from around the world, with one Facebook user calling Organo's actions an example of "Humanity at its best."
Others expressed how touched they were by her simple act of kindness and called her an angel, a great mom and great person.
"I breastfed a stranger's baby inflight," Organo wrote proudly toward the end of her post, signing off as "Flight Attendant/Breastfeeding Advocate."
And she expressed how grateful she was for what she called "the gift of mother's milk."