Had a similar but not quite as dramatic experience.
Non-reving home from ATL with my then 9 month old and 4 year old daughters after a visit to my parents, direct flight delayed and one stop flight overbooked, and was stand in line at the gate desk when I got a call from crew scheduling.
They said that they saw that I was trying to get home and that the FO on the delayed flight was timing out. Could I work the flight?
I told them that I had two small problems, 2 young kids. Told not to worry; the flight was being shown as a live flight (only to keep up appearances for flight completion) but was in reality a repositioning flight and that the flight attendants would take care of my kids.
The captain came up and informed me that the flight attendants couldn't be baby sitters.
A call from crew scheduling said that the nw deadheading FO could watch the kids. The captain came back up and said that was not an option because the FO said he was not checked out on that kind of equipment.
One more call from crew scheduling said that one of the non-revs that was trying to get home had volunteered to watch the kids if that was the only to make the flight work.
Everyone finally agreed to this and we were on our way.
Slacks and golf shirt, no flight bag or anything else. Used FO's charts and spare A/C headset.
In cruise, I went back to check on everything. I had forgotten to tell anyone that the 9 month old didn't really like being held by strange to her women. Not to worry, I found her asleep on the "not checked out on that equipment" FO's shoulder.
When we got in I was met by an angry now ex who castigated me for leaving our kids in the care of strangers even though they were 15 feet away from me with nowhere to go.
She took the kids and left me to collect the checked bags.
I got several "attaboy" letters in my file from flight ops and crew scheduling as well as being paid for the flight and the leg from homebase to ATL that I was not even on.
By my estimation, the letters were worth far more than the extra pay that I got.
PP
