Teen Rescues Disabled Man in Wheelchair Before Tornado Hits: 'It's Good to Help Other People'
When 16-year-old Seth Phillips was driving with his mother in St. Louis, Missouri, he saw a disabled man struggling to push himself in a wheelchair. Phillips instantly got out of the car to help.
Gregory Beck, a double amputee who is legally blind because of complications from diabetes, was wheeling himself home before a tornado was about to hit the city, according to CBS affiliate KMOV.
The news outlet reports that drivers were yelling at him to get to safety as he made his way to a gas station to rest his arms.
It was then that Phillips asked his mother, Amber Gilleylen, if he could get out of the car and push the man home.
The two made the quarter of a mile journey home, a trip that typically takes Beck 25 minutes and sometimes includes 10 stops along the way to rest.
“Everyone kept telling me the storm is coming and you need to hurry up and get home,” Beck told KMOV. “This lady and her son were hollering at me like, ‘Are you okay?’ “
He added: “Very lovely lady driving and her son. Just the greatest people and very concerned about other people, which America needs to start doing more of.”
Gilleylen, who recorded her son helping Beck get home, told KMOV that she hopes other teenagers “will see that it’s the cool thing to do, you know, it’s good to help other people. It doesn’t make you uncool to stop and help someone who needs it.”
She added that while she’s proud of her, she’s also not surprised he would help a stranger.
“His only complaint was, ‘It makes me sad that people would rather fly by and honk at a disabled person rather than to lend a hand,'” Gilleylen told the news outlet.
After sitting down as a family, Gilleylen decided to create a GoFundMe page for Beck that has since raised over $2,700.
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“We really would like to get this man an electric wheelchair and provide him with a safer and more sensible way to get to and from home for his needs. Please consider helping,” she wrote.
Beck also wants to “see the world become a better kinder place, so I am asking you to help me show him what can happen if we all pull together and make a way.”
She continued to write: “If some how some way we are able to raise the money needed to get this man his chair, I will be sure to donate the overages to a needy cause. Thank you all so much again for all of the love and kindness you have shown Seth.”
