SLIPPERY ROCK — At 30 years old, Jackie Pflug's life was similar to the lives of the Slippery Rock University students she was talking to on Saturday.

Spending a majority of her time finding the most stylish clothes, hanging out with the right friends and driving the perfect car, Pflug never really stepped outside of her tunnel vision.

At least not until Nov. 23, 1985, the day her entire life changed.

As poised and confident as ever, Pflug stood in SRU's Morrow Field House and told freshman her story of fear, survival, hope and accomplishment.

Pflug's speech was a part of SRU's freshman orientation program. Pflug's book, "Miles to go Before I Sleep," was a summer reading assignment for them.

A special education teacher in Cairo, Egypt, Pflug was flying home from a volleyball tournament in Athens, Greece, aboard EgyptAir Flight 648. Ten minutes into the flight, a group of terrorists calling themselves the Egyptian Revolution hijacked the plane.

They forced the plane to land in Valetta, Malta.

After the landing, Pflug watched every 15 minutes as the terrorists executed one passenger, shooting him at point blank range and leaving the victim for dead on the tarmac below the plane.

After murdering the four passengers ahead of Pflug in the execution line, the terrorists suddenly stopped the killings.

"I really did think we were going to be released at any minute," Pflug told the audience.

"I started to relax and think about my life. I had three thoughts that I can remember. I thought about a conversation with my mother before I left for Athens where I had been short with her. I thought about my husband, Scott, and how he had wanted to take me on a date before I left, and I promised him we would go when I got back. And I thought about my girlfriend who had wanted me to go to Hawaii, where I had always wanted to go. And I told her maybe next summer. I was way too busy this summer. There was this sadness that came over me that I would never be able to make those things right."

But then one of the terrorists ripped her from her seat and pulled her to the front door of the plane. With a weapon pressed firmly to her head, Pflug considered trying to knock the hijacker down and jump to safety. But she never got the chance.

"He pulls the trigger and this heavy feeling comes over me," Pflug said. "It felt like my brain was exploding. Then I felt like I was falling and I hit hardness. I thought I hit heaven. And I never imagined heaven as being hard so I opened my eyes to see it and I saw the runway."

Fearful the terrorists would find she had survived the gunshot, Pflug closed her eyes and lied motionless on the tarmac for five hours, as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

"I remember thinking about what I was wearing," Pflug laughed. "Only a female would do that. I had on this oversized T-shirt, but I like my clothes to fit. And that morning when I got dressed and put that t-shirt on I cursed myself for forgetting to pack enough clothes. It's funny, in the morning, I hated that shirt, but it could have been what kept me alive because I was able to conceal my breathing under its bulkiness."

After hours of acting lifeless, Pflug awoke to a man screaming. She was being picked up by officials.

The terrorists had agreed to let the medics collect the dead bodies, 59 in all, in exchange for fuel.

Pflug said, "He flipped me over and I gasped. … They knew I was alive. I asked them, 'Are you the good guys?' They told me, 'We're the medics and you're going to be okay.'"

When she got to the hospital, doctors found the entire right side of Pflug's skull caved. In surgery, the doctors were able to remove the pieces of Pflug's skull from her brain and restore it to its normal shape.

However, it would be years before she would ever really begin to recover from the wound.

"When I got shot, everything changed," she said. "The way I talked, the way I thought, the way I read. … The doctors told me I would never go back to work, I would never read above a kindergarten reading level and I would never drive a car."

The gunshot left Pflug's short-term memory and expressive language damaged temporarily and her left eye's peripheral vision impaired permanently.

"I went into this depression," she said. "I didn't want to do anything but sit in my bed, watch TV and cry. But after four years of that, I got tired of being angry, I got tired of being tired and I got tired of being sad. I just got tired of who I let myself become. So I made a commitment to getting what I wanted."

Within two years, Pflug got her driver's license back. Two years later she started a new career in motivational speaking and 18 years from that day she scored at a 12th grade reading level.

"What first appears in our lives as a major setback is just a test of our strength in our ability to grow," Pflug told the students. "I was being nudged to find strength I never knew I had."

"When I was 30 years old, life was about wearing the right clothes, having the right car and having the right friends. I've come to know there's another way of thinking when there are no cell phones no shopping malls, no distractions. When I was on that plane getting ready to be shot, I was in the moment. I was quiet and I heard my inner voice.

"And I urge you to also hear that inner voice. Listen to it. Don't ignore it and let it steer you where you need to be."