Adam Wilson’s week was bad — and getting worse.
On Monday, the Denver man said goodbye to his elderly cat at Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital. Three days later, he found himself with his dog, injured in a Christmas Eve fight with another dog, at the same facility to patch up a worrisome bite wound.
It was Christmas morning and Wilson was retrieving his credit card to pay the upfront $200 emergency room fee when things suddenly took a very merry turn.
“This man walks up and says, ‘Nope, nope, nope — let me cover that,’” Wilson recounted Friday in a phone interview. “He told me that no one should ever have to be here on Christmas dealing with their pet. I was stunned, I was speechless.”
And it didn’t stop there. Wilson said he offered to cover the bill of the next pet owner to walk through the doors at the Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital in a “pay-it-forward” goodwill gesture. But the Good Samaritan, seated in the waiting room and armed with a stack of money-filled envelopes, wouldn’t hear of it.
“‘Nope, nope — I’m going to cover this too,’” Wilson recalled the man saying. “‘I’m just here trying to help people out.’”
At the end of the day, the man covered around $2,400 in vet bills for pet owners visiting the Wheat Ridge emergency room on Christmas Day, according to a receptionist working the Christmas shift at the animal hospital.
She asked that her name not be used in this story.
“It was very surprising,” she said. “I have never witnessed something so heartfelt in my life.”
The man, who insisted on remaining anonymous, paid a $300 bill for one devastated woman who brought in her dog to be euthanized, the receptionist said.
“It’s one of those things you hear about, or see on social media, but never expect to actually see in real life,” she said. “It was overwhelmingly heart-warming.”
Wilson’s Australian cattle dog mix, named Chopper, is back at home with a couple of sutures holding things together on its left side. The dog is expected to make a full recovery.
The whole experience brought tears to Wilson’s eyes. He posted about the incident on Reddit because he wanted people to know about the potential for good in the world.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced generosity firsthand like that before,” he said.
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