Imagine working at a grocery store when you find out that a customer looks like they might be having a medical emergency. Would you prioritize scanning and bagging groceries, or would you jump to call 911 and help the customer in any way you can?

One way to make that decision would be to put yourself in the position of the person who needs help. Would you want someone to go above and beyond to make sure you made it to the hospital safely? Obviously, you would. Bagging groceries suddenly doesn’t seem so important.

In this story, it’s easy to see the compassionate people from the heartless people. The bagger telling the story is quite compassionate and goes out of his way to help an older man who is suffering from heat stroke, but his supervisor wants him to get back to bagging groceries.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

(L) Help a man suffering heatstroke supervisor said I should continue bagging!

This happened about 3 years ago.

Backstory: I worked in a grocery store in the southern USA, for those who haven’t lived there it can be really hot during the summer or in my state very humid.

At the time I was a bagger/cashier/janitor so I wore many hats… the stories I could tell…

Onto the real story

A customer looked like he was going to faint.

That day we were starting to get closer to the lunch rush and as this store also had meals it was a popular destination.

I’m baggin when a customer called to us and she asked us to help cause she noticed a man looking ready to faint sitting in the chair across from the pharmacy.

I stopped everything I was doing and rushed over, he looked to be in his 60’s maybe 70’s so I didn’t take any chances I went and got him some water and talked to him while a manager was dialing 911.

The reason he got heatstroke was by walking several miles without water in the summer heat!. (Which was 90 degrees F while feeling like 100 F if I remember correctly)

He thought it was important to stay with the man while he waited for the ambulance.

I told him my name after he told me his and even asked me to call someone.

Apparently he normally has a driver who he’d call but often joke about the ambulance so he wanted me to talk to her to ask her to pick him up and clarify it was a real emergency.

Since I got to know him at this point and knew that if I was in his situation I’d there was someone who I met and I’m scared I’d be grateful so I stayed with him till they took him away speaking calmly and trying my best to make him feel comfortable.

One store supervisor was pretty heartless.

The thing that was annoying was while in the middle of helping this man. One of my supervisors called for me to come over and help bagging when clearly this man needed someone by his side.

And after the event he told me “you should have come over to continue bagging” now this guy already thought he was a know it all, so it was even more annoying.

I mean, Dude! Seriously!? Bagging is such an easy task people can do for themselves that other countries only use cashiers! And even then I wasn’t going to leave a scared man like that!

But the manager was on his side.

Luckily my actual store manager agreed with me and thanked me for staying by the mans side. And the man was calling to complement and tell them how grateful he was.

Wholesome ending: apparently the man came back every night for a couple weeks to find me and thank me personally and told me my calm voice was soothing and helpful.

Glad I could be of help

Even though I don’t work there anymore I enjoy good memories like that.

That was so sweet how he helped that man.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

He definitely did the right thing.

One person makes a joke.

Another person thinks paying people to bag groceries is ridiculous.

This person shares hopes for the supervisor.

Perhaps the manager would’ve been the right person to call HR about the supervisor’s reaction (or lack of concern) about the man who needed to go to the hospital. It certainly sounds like the employee and the manager both chose to do the right thing while the supervisor was too concerned with getting the job done instead of handling an emergency situation.

One lesson from this story is to take precautions when spending time outside in the heat. I can’t imagine walking a long distance in heat and humidity without having a bottle of water with me.

Another lesson is that a supervisor can be wrong, and ignoring the supervisor is sometimes the right thing to do.

Thankfully, there are kind and considerate people in the world who know that health is more important than bagging groceries. I love that the older man came back to say thank you. That shows how much the kind bagger’s actions truly meant to him.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a cashier who gave her phone number to be friendly to a guest, but immediately wished she could take it back.