American Airlines Finds GoPro of Woman Who Died on Hiking Trip

Tragedy struck one family on vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park a few days after Christmas.

On December 27, Laila Jiwani, 42, was hiking with her husband and three children on the Porter Creek Trail when a tree fell due to high winds.

Jiwani took the impact of the falling tree in an effort to save her young son and died on the scene. Jiwani’s six-year-old son, Jibran, was airlifted to a hospital and underwent surgery on his broken leg and treated for head injuries.

Following her death, the family posted on Facebook in search of a missing GoPro camera they thought had been lost on an American Airlines Flight 5944 from Knoxville to Dallas.

The GoPro camera contained final footage of the mother of three.

The relative of Jiwani posted:

“Please help us locate this GoPro that was left on an American Airlines flight on Saturday, December 29th. ALL WE WANT ARE THE PICTURES/VIDEOS. We are offering a CASH reward for this. To the person who has this or finds this – you can keep the GoPro, you can keep all of the accessories, all we want is the footage. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE spread this post and help us find this GoPro. God is great and I know we will be able to retrieve these memories. #FindTheGoPro”

With some luck, the GoPro was found by American Airlines on Saturday and returned to the family.

“We know how important the camera was to the family, and we want to thank all of the American team members who worked extensively to locate it,” Ross Feinstein, a spokesman at American Airlines, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Jiwani was a pediatrician at Cook Children’s Northside Neighborhood Clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, and had worked there since 2007.

“Over the years, Dr. Jiwani served as a primary care physician in Lewisville as well as in our Northside Fort Worth clinic,” Nelson said in the statement. “She was beloved by her patients, families as well as her co-workers. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.”