“I cannot even put into words how much happiness this has brought to me knowing that I am bringing happiness to him,” Calabrese said.
He didn’t have much, but what he did have was his and Dana Lee Calabrese was going to make sure that he held onto it.
Calabrese came across Douglas Dean Hall, a homeless veteran and amputee who lost his leg in combat, collapsed in the middle of a busy Los Angeles street.
“My cousin Jackie Lezette and I called 911 and waited for the ambulance to arrive,” Calabrese wrote on Facebook. “Seemed like forever. A young man and woman were also there, they carried him out of the street and we all waited for the paramedics together. When they did I asked if they would be taking his cart of belongings. The response sent chills down my spine. ‘No, are you? A million more dominoes fall a day around here’.”
https://www.facebook.com/danaleecalabrese/posts/10154387158974714
Calabrese was shocked by the paramedic’s heartless response, so she took his cartful of belongings and gave the paramedics her number so that Hall could contact her so she could return his cart.
“I couldn’t stomach that response. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they have a very hard job to do and perhaps you get desensitized after working in such a large city with such an immense homeless population, but I just couldn’t bare this person losing what I believed to be all he had in the world,” she told ABC News. “So I thought, ‘Yeah, I will take his cart.’ and then strolled it all the way home.”
Source:
gofundme
She never knew if he received her number so she ended up making a plea on Facebook asking for help in finding him so she could return his belongings to him.
She also wanted to raise some money for him to help him get to New York so he could be with some of his loved ones.
She started a gofundme campaign for him and eventually was able to track him down.
“He knows that I am getting him to New York because I told him that I would make that happen,” Calabrese said. “At that point, he was crying and telling me I was an angel. He also at one point screamed out ‘God is Good.'”
Source:
gofundme
Calabrese ended up raising four times her original goal for Hall, more than $4,000, which will get him to New York and then some.
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By D.G. Sciortino
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Dina is a contributing writer in Shareably. She's based in Connecticut and can be reached at [email protected].