Those That Can
The old saying, "those that can, do; those that can't, teach" came to mind when I read this story. Two older men, one a retired police officer, the other a former US Marine subdued an unruly passenger on a Northwest Airlines Flight between Boston and Minneapolis. Younger men averted their eyes and ignored the problem the passenger was causing.
Shortly before landing, Bob Hayden and a flight attendant had agreed on a signal: When she waved the plastic handcuffs, he would discreetly leave his seat and restrain an unruly passenger who had frightened some of the 150 people on board a Minneapolis-to-Boston flight Saturday night with erratic behavior.
Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out to be a former US Marine.
"I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation."
The incident on Northwest Airlines Flight 720 ended peacefully, but not before Hayden, a former Boston police deputy superintendent and former Lawrence police chief, and the retired Marine had handcuffed one man and stood guard over another until the plane touched down safely at Logan International Airport around 7:50 p.m.
State Police troopers escorted two men off the flight. Trooper Thomas Murphy, a State Police spokesman, said one of the men was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital for "an unspecified medical issue, possibly mental health."
Apparently, the second man identified himself as the brother of the unruly one. But the best part of this story is the conduct of Hayden's wife of 42 years:
Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.
"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."
That is someone who has lived a long time with one of those that can.
Other Links to this Post
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UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » Veterans on a Plane — Wednesday, 6 June , 2007 @ 9:10 am
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Hometown Hero — Friday, 8 June , 2007 @ 8:22 am
By jpg, Wednesday, 6 June , 2007 @ 10:44 am
I love what that guy did, but I really, really love that lady. JPG