In what can only be described as a tragic turn of events, a Wisconsin woman says that after she received a troubling text from her husband while on board a Southwest Airlines flight about to take off, she was told she couldn’t call him. When she arrived home, police informed her that her husband had taken his own life.

The woman says the alarming text came moments before her flight from New Orleans to Milwaukee was set to take off, when he sent a message asking her for forgiveness for committing suicide, reports WTMJ-4 News (warning: link contains video that auto-plays).

“I started shaking the minute I got the text and I was panicked, I didn’t know what to do,” she said, adding that she immediately replied “no,” and went to call him.

But a flight attendant making her final checks told her she had to turn her phone off or put it in airplane mode, and “slapped the phone down,” the passenger says.

When she explained the situation, the woman says the attendant told her it was “FAA regulations.”

After the flight reached cruising altitude she explained what was going on to another crewmember, saying she begged her to somehow get an emergency call out, but that that attendant also said there was nothing she could do.

“I just wanted someone to go and try to save him,” she added.

Instead, she says she sat crying in her seat for the next two hours. When she arrived at the gate in Milwaukee, she immediately called the police. Upon arriving home, officers informed her that her husband had died.

Southwest Airlines issued a statement to WTMJ-4, saying:

“Our hearts go out to the family during this difficult time. Flight attendants are trained to notify the Captain if there is an emergency that poses a hazard to the aircraft or to the passengers on-board. In this situation, the pilots were not notified.”

That almost seems to make it worse, as the woman says she thinks she could’ve changed what happened that day if given the chance.

“The pain of knowing something could have been done, it breaks my heart,” she told the station.

A call for help: Local woman looking for answers after her husband took his own life [WTMJ-4 News]

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