LIBERTY Hijack survivor to tell of life now

The talk will be at a March 31 seminar in the MetroPlex.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jackie Pflug, hands tied behind her back, was shot point-blank in the head by a hijacker and thrown from the airplane to the airstrip, where she lay for five hours, drifting in and out of consciousness.
When she was awake she breathed slowly and kept her eyes closed, pretending to be dead, so the hijackers would not notice her.
It was Nov. 24, 1985, when the hijackers traded what they thought were dead bodies for food at the airstrip in Valletta, Malta.
Pflug, the fifth passenger shot, is an author, wife, mother and now a nationally known motivational speaker.
But those few hours of terror, beginning Nov. 23 when the EgyptAir jetliner in which she was riding was hijacked, brought her life-altering consequences.
Her injury: The 38-caliber bullet that plowed into her brain caused her to lose much of her sight and develop epilepsy. She had short-term memory loss so severe she could not retain words long enough to understand sentences, she said from her home in Minneapolis.
But, it is what happened after Nov. 24, 1985, that Pflug wants to talk about at a seminar March 31 in the Holiday Inn MetroPlex in Liberty.
Reservations for the half-day event, from 7:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., can be made by contacting the Epilepsy Foundation of Northeast Ohio, Mahoning Valley Chapter, at 330-799-6777 by Friday.
"Life now is more about living with integrity and character and never giving up. There is a reason for everything and there is divine good ... that is, good always comes from what seems bad," she said.
Pflug was 30, a graduate of the University of Houston with a master's degree in education and psychology, teaching in the American school in Cairo, Egypt, living out her dream when the bottom fell out.
She and her husband of five months, Scott, were in Athens, Greece, for a volleyball tournament. Scott was a volleyball coach. She had to go back to Egypt a day early and boarded EgyptAir Flight 648.
The hijacking: About 15 minutes after takeoff, hijackers took control.
The plane landed on Malta and the hijackers said if their demands were not met they would kill one passenger every 15 minutes.
When it was Pflug's turn, three hours went by and she began to have hope she would be spared. But, into the fourth hour, a hijacker came out of the cockpit, took her to the plane door and shot her, she recounted.
She said her goal now is to smile a lot. "If I do that, it was a good day," she said.
Other presenters and topics at the seminar will be: Dr. Revere Kinkle, a Cleveland Clinic neurologist; Dr. Jack Anstandig, a Cleveland neurologist for pain management and Dr. Nancy Foldvary, who specializes in epilepsy in women at Cleveland Clinic.