A random act of kindness from a stranger helped a family that wanted a power wheelchair, WKRN reported.
Rushing to visit her dying mother in early January, Susan Scates and her son, Travis, were driving from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Duncan, Oklahoma, the television station reported.
The two travelers stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Dickson, Tennessee, and after dinner, Travis was using his manual wheelchair to look around the restaurant's store. That's when a man approached Scates, WKRN reported.
"There was a gentleman standing there with his wife and he approached me and he said 'How does your son like his wheelchair?' and I said. ‘We don't love it, we are looking to get him a new one,’" Scates told the television station. "He said, 'Would you like a power chair for him?' And I said 'Yes, that is where we want to go with him eventually,' and he said, 'No, would he like a power chair because I have one and I would like to give it to him.’”
Scates said she was stunned.
"What do you say to something like that?" she told WKRN.
Scates had to continue to Oklahoma, but she arranged for her brother to pick up the power chair several days later, the television station reported. She said Travis was excited to get the new chair, asking if it had a jetpack.
"For his life and circumstances, he is limited and so for us and him it was this stranger who was able to give something that adds such value to him," Scates told WKRN. "It is very meaningful to us and incredibly meaningful to my son as well."
Scates said she was able to tell her mother, Lahoma Fay Mason Greenwood, about the new wheelchair before her death in Duncan on Jan. 9. Greenwood was 84.
The man who donated the power chair said he wanted to remain anonymous, WKRN reported.
