I had a similar experience with CAL in 1995. Got a call from ops taxiing out of MCO to ATL that my dad had been taken back to the hospital (cancer) and things were not looking good. They had arranged a replacement for me in ATL and there was CAL flight departing :30 after our scheduled block in and they had gotten me the J/S.

We held for an hour inbound due to weather over the Florida arrival corridors. I knew I'd missed the flight. As we taxied in, a CAL truck crossed the ramp and pulled up planeside. The ramper came up and introduced himself and grabbed my bags for me. Took me planeside and refused to let me carry them aboard. I went into the cockpit, introduced myself and profusely thanked the Captain.

His only words were to the senior, not me. "Put this man in First Class and no one gets off in EWR until he does." The entire crew couldn't have been nicer. I got to EWR and they had a van waiting that took me to the crew lot. Made it to the hospital in PHL almost at midnight and spent my dad's last :30 minutes of consciousness with him before he went into a coma and passed away later that next morning.

There are good guys and gals out there. Nice to see these guys got some credit.