Local

Woman with Down syndrome gets dream of becoming flight attendant

A few months ago, a friendship was born more than 30,000 feet in the air, thousands of miles away from Jacksonville, but this story has a unique local tie.

The friendship involves a woman with Down syndrome from the Sacramento, California area, and a Southwest Airlines flight attendant from Phoenix, Arizona.

The pair developed a friendship onboard a flight several months ago. During that time, Tracy Sharp shared with the veteran flight attendant Vicki Heath that her dream was to become a flight attendant, too.

After months of planning, Heath arranged for Sharp to work on a flight to Seattle from Sacramento as an honorary flight attendant on Friday.

Since then, their story has gone viral. Heath is the mom of Action News Jax anchor and reporter Cole Heath.

Heath’s version of his mom and Tracy’s story on his Facebook page already has more than 74,000 views since it was posted Saturday morning- and counting.

The CBS news affiliate, CBS 13, in Sacramento was there as Tracy got her wings and greeted passengers boarding the plane.

If you would like to leave an encouraging comment for Tracy, click here.