From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankarvedantim. This is my unsung hero,

stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My story is about a group of unsung heroes.

He just pulled up a chair and we talked, I'd say for about 90 minutes or something.

I don't know if she really understands or

appreciates the full impact that she's had in my life and still continues to have.

Today's story comes from Wendy McDowell. When Wendy was very young, her parents separated.

A few years later, when she was 8 years old, they arranged for her to travel from upstate New York where she was living with her mom

to North Dakota to visit her dad.

No one in Wendy's family was able to fly her back and forth.

So it was decided that she would be chaperoned by a family friend, a 19-year-old she had never

met.

We're calling her Kim.

Their flight out to North Dakota was uneventful. On their way back to the East Coast,

Kim and Wendy landed in Chicago for a layover. They discovered that their connecting flight was

cancelled.

And that's when Kim made a choice that Wendy still struggles to understand.

She booked herself on another flight headed home

and left Wendy to fend for herself.

She left me in the Chicago O'Hare Airport.

As an 8-year-old with no flight, no plan, no adult in charge of me just literally walked away.

I really have no idea how long I cried by myself in the airport.

...