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Survivor: 'I Didn't Get To Tell Everyone Goodbye'

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Jan 16, 2009 6:11 pm US/Eastern

Survivor: 'I Didn't Get To Tell Everyone Goodbye'

Grandmother Tells CBS 2 About What She Thought Were Her Final Moments

 CBS News Interactive: Eye On Air Safety
Reporting
Cindy Hsu
MATAWAN, N.Y. (CBS) ― We're hearing more from the passengers who witnessed the amazing heroics of the flight crew on US Airways Flight 1549. CBS 2 went to Matawan where a grandmother still can't believe she and everyone else made it out alive.

On Friday, Beth McHugh hugged her grandson Jack as long as she could. She lives in Charlotte, but flies to New York and New Jersey every week for work and to visit her grandchildren.

When her plane went down, she thought of everyone she loved.

"I didn't get to tell everybody goodbye, it's what you think [about]," she told CBS 2. "I needed to tell everyone how much I loved them, I hadn't gotten to do that."

Her daughter Caitlin is a school teacher and was at work when her husband sent the text message, "Was your mom flying today?"

She knew something was wrong.

"That was the thing that sort of immediately impacted me the most, that you know my baby wouldn't get to know his grandmother," she tearfully told CBS 2. "I'm adjusted enough to reality to know that we lose people in this world. I was just, it can't happen yet, I'm just not ready."

Even when Caitlin heard everyone survived, she couldn't fully believe it until her mother walked through the door late last night, suffering only a few bruises.

"There are so many heroes, there is so much to celebrate," she said.

Beth McHugh on Friday wore a shirt that says "Life is Good" and says surviving the accident has her re-assessing everything.

"All of us need to look and see what it is we're still here for, what is it that I'm meant to do now," she said. "Because for some reason all of us were saved yesterday."

She said the one thing she'll keep doing just the same is telling her family she loves them every chance she gets. 

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