Mandy Doolittle, 59, was on her way home from her job at the American Nurses’ Association in Silver Spring when the crash occurred.
“She was a bright spot in everybody’s day,” her boss, Jeanne Floyd, told The Examiner. “She was just attuned to everyone around her. Her day was, ‘What can I do for you?’”
Doolittle was originally from Texas and loved traveling out West. She and Floyd, another Westerner, called each other, “cowgirl.”
Doolittle and her partner were planning on a trip next month, Floyd recalled.
Jada Leng, another coworker of Doolittle’s, had been on an earlier train back to the District and saw the television report about the crash.
“I was thinking about all my coworkers who take it,” Leng said “This morning, we went around to see who was here and who wasn’t.”
Nurses Association spokeswoman Mary McNamara said that one other association employee was injured in Monday’s crash.
Doolittle had worked as a senior administrative assistant since 1998, handling the credentials of overseas nursing schools, McNamara said. Having lived in Italy in her younger days, Doolittle was adept at cultivating the respect of healthcare officials everywhere, Floyd said.
“This went across the world,” she said.
