She had always wanted to be a flight attendant and after eleven years was flying only two trips a month, to be home with her two toddlers and her stepdaughter. During the hijacking she telephoned United to report the emergency and describe the men who had taken the aircraft, then called her husband. She told him they were boiling water in the galley to throw at them. As the call ended she said everyone was running to the front.

Killed aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on the morning of 11 September 2001. The aircraft had left Newark forty-two minutes late, which is the only reason those aboard learned by telephone what had already happened in New York before theirs was taken. They had about thirty minutes. They voted, and they went forward at the cockpit door. The aircraft never reached what it was aimed at.