A Navy veteran who spent years wrecking his knees on airport tarmac has been handed more than $180,000 by strangers – after a passer-by filmed him limping and asked the internet to help.
James Blair, 64, works as a fuel mechanic at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. Decades of physical labor had left his knees badly damaged, but he kept working despite the pain.
LaCinda Thackeray, a traveler from Utah who was in California for a funeral, spotted him struggling to walk across the tarmac and pulled out her phone. She posted a short clip to TikTok asking if anyone recognized him.
“I just saw somebody who needed a little bit of support and love and kindness,” she told KSL.com.
The video quickly took off, drawing more than 9 million views. And incredibly, strangers set out to identify the man in the clip and see if they could help.
They soon learned he was a Navy veteran who had kept working through the pain in his knees while helping care for his 90-year-old mother, who is in hospice care.
“What really was hard for me was just the conditions he was in,” Thackeray told KSL.com.
Donations poured in from around the world, with a reported fundraiser collecting $180,521 within days, from thousands of separate donors.
LaCinda did not stop at the video, though. She flew back to California and turned up at Blair’s home to hand him a check in person.
