ABSTRACT
A news item recently caught our attention. Flight attendant Kim Stroka claimed that she was too distraught to return to work after her co-worker died on United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked after taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport en route to San Francisco on 11 September 2001. Of compelling interest to counterfactual researchers, Stroka had apparently traded shifts with her co-worker and, thus, would have died instead of her colleague if she had worked her normal shift. Claiming that she was having difficulty eating and sleeping and that she was being treated by a psychologist for post-traumatic stress disorder, Stroka applied for medical and disability payments but was turned down by the state appellate court. According to the court, Stroka was not entitled to the award because “nothing happened while she was working which led to her current condition” (“No 9-11 Compensation for Flight Attendant,” Associated Press 2003).
