Pam Brekke turned away from the register at a Lowe’s store in Orlando, tears streaming down her face.
With Hurricane Irma barreling toward south Florida this weekend, Brekke desperately needed to find a generator to keep her dad’s oxygen tank working, should he lose power in the storm, according to The Telegraph. But like every other store Brekke had visited this week, this particular Lowe’s had just run out of a new shipment. She didn’t know what to do.
“My father is on oxygen,” she explained to WFTV News. “I’m worried about this storm.”
Fortunately, fellow store patron Ramon Santiago was there to save the day.
Santiago had snatched up one of the last generators the store had in stock, and upon seeing Brekke in tears — and without even knowing the details of her dire situation — insisted she take his.
“It’s OK,” he assured her as they embraced in a hug. “Everything is OK.”
WFTV News reporter Nancy Alvarez caught the emotional exchange on video:
Alvarez shared the video on Facebook, noting she was “writing [the caption] through tears and with a heart full of pride for my community.”
Natural disasters bring about the worst of tragedies, but they tend to bring out the best in ourselves.
From brave reporters putting their jobs on hold to save lives, to heroes who refuse to leave their neighbors behind, humanity shines brightest when our backs are up against a wall.
“She need the generator,” Santiago, whose first language is not English, explained to WFTV. “It’s OK. No worry for them.”
Now, as Irma — the strongest hurricane ever to be recorded in the Atlantic Ocean — propels through the Caribbean, Floridians are proving once again that fear is no match for compassion.
“I’m very overwhelmed by that man,” Brekke noted. “That gentleman was a great gentleman right there. God will bless that man.”
