Complete strangers rally behind man with Down syndrome who was fired by Wendy's after 20 years
'You can’t treat somebody like that.'

Dennis Peek had been working at Wendy's for more than 20 years.
We’ve come a long way when it comes to how we view and treat others with disabilities. However, to say that our society has completely done away with ableism would be naive.
Dennis Peek, a man with Down syndrome, had worked at a Wendy’s in North Carolina for 20 years. According to his sister Cona Turner, Peek’s dream was to one day have a “huge retirement party.” Instead, he was abruptly fired after two decades of service.
"They told me [he] was unable to perform the duties of a normal person’s job!!!!,” Turner said in a now viral Facebook post. She added that she was looking into wrongful termination of a special needs employee and considering throwing a retirement party for Peek anyway.
“They have no idea how they hurt my brother,” her post concluded.
Little did Turner know, but voicing her frustrations online would be just the catalyst needed to turn things around in a positive way.
WSOC-TV reported that only a day later, Turner received a call from Carolina Restaurant Group, which owns and operates the Wendy’s, offering to give Peek his job back.
“We are committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for our employees and our customers. This was an unfortunate mistake and lapse in protocol; we are in touch with the employee’s family, and we are looking forward to welcoming him back to work in the restaurant,” Carolina Restaurant Group said in a statement, according to WSOC-TV.
Peek is getting the retirement party he deserves.
Turner, “overwhelmed” by the support she and her brother were shown online, updated her post to include the Carolina Restaurant Group offer. However, she felt that it didn’t fully make things right. “To me that was giving a normalcy back to Dennis,” she said in an interview with WBTV. “Now is it fair? No it’s not fair at all. Should there be consequences? Absolutely. You can’t treat somebody like that.”
So instead of returning to work, Peek will be getting his long-awaited big retirement party.
“Wendy’s has offered to help with expenses and anything else they can for his special day,” she wrote in a subsequent post update. “I feel in my heart at this point I should do what is best for my brother.”

Sometimes social media is a force for good.
Turner told WBTV that Peek “enjoyed every minute working his job,” particularly interacting with other people. Knowing how much the job meant to him made it all the more devastating to receive the news—over the phone and minutes before Peek was set to be dropped off, no less. Turner added that the manager also failed to hand over any termination papers despite her request for them.
”He don’t understand if someone is coming against him,” Turner said. “He don’t understand not being treated fair. He don’t understand none of that. He don’t…it just breaks my heart.”
Peek’s much-deserved party might have never happened without the flood of positive comments Turner received online, making her post go viral. People who had been rallying for Peek to get his job back were celebrating his victory in the comments after Turner’s most recent announcement.
“Way to stand behind your brother in what is right! Praying for all of you in this special retirement party! Please set up a special retirement account that we can give to!” wrote one person.
“I am so happy for your brother for being offered his job back and his retirement party. Is there anything he really likes? I would love to send him a gift. He has a very big heart for others.,” wrote another.
Happy retirement, Peek. We hope it’s the shindig of your dreams. Sometimes social media really can be a force for good.






A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
A man with tape over his mouth.via
A husband is angry with his wife. via 
a man sitting at a desk with his head on his arms Photo by
Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
Two women engaging in a pleasant conversation inside a coffee shop
Two men engaging in a peaceful disagreement.
Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.