Sign The Friendly Skies

CLARA DALY was seated on an Alaska Airlines flight en route from Boston to Los Angeles when a flight attendant asked an urgent question over the loudspeaker: “Does anyone on board know American Sign Language?”

- Andy Simmons

Clara, 15 at the time, pressed the call button. The flight attendant came by and explained the situation. “We have a passenger on the plane who’s blind and deaf,” she said. The passenger seemed to want something, but he was traveling alone and the flight attendants couldn’t understand what he needed, according to people.com.

Clara had been studying ASL for the past year to help with her dyslexia and knew she’d be able to fingerspell into the man’s palm.