Kirby Evans, cured of cancer but disfigured, was thrown out of a service station because of his physique. The manager of the place came to ask him to cover his face “not to scare the customers” or to leave his establishment.
Originally from South Carolina, Kirby Evans, 65, is a survivor. A few years ago, doctors diagnosed this father with basal cell carcinoma, a skin cancer that affects the deepest cells of the epidermis, known as basal cells.
Representing 80% of non-melanoma skin cancers, it is favored by age and exposure to ultraviolet rays. Rarely giving rise to metastases, basal cell carcinoma generally benefits from a favorable diagnosis but is also the cause of very unsightly lesions on the skin.
Kirby Evans survived his cancer. Operated on the level of the nose and the left eye, this pensioner without income could not however finance a repairing surgery which would have returned his face of formerly. He must therefore live today with a face devoid of an eye, and without a nose.
A situation already difficult to accept for the sexagenarian, who must also deal with the gaze, rarely benevolent, of others. An event that occurred last week unfortunately reminded him of this, and in the most violent of ways.
Asked to cover his face or leave
On October 9, Kirby Evans stopped at the Forks Pit Stop, a small gas station near his home, to eat a donut and drink a coffee. But barely seated in front of his meal, the manager of the place came to ask him to cover his face “not to scare the customers” or to leave his establishment. Humiliated, Kirby Evans preferred to leave.
Kirby Evans’ daughter, Brandy, shared the story on her Facebook page. “My father is a cancer survivor. He lost his sight and nose to this terrible cancer.” “He left and came home in tears to tell me what had happened: the owner grabbed him by his shirt and took him to his office to ask him to cover his face or get out. of the store so as not to ‘frighten’ customers.”
An outpouring of generosity against discrimination
A discriminatory and inadmissible attitude that revolted Internet users. Shared and commented on thousands of times in a few days, it even gave rise to a wave of generosity. Indeed, Brandy launched an online kitty called ‘Cancer should not discriminate’, which allowed him to collect more than 77,000 dollars generously donated by 2,600 people.
This sum will be used by Kirby Evans to improve his quality of life and, if the sum is sufficient, finance corrective surgery.
For her part, the director of the Forks Pit Stop wanted to speak. Claiming to have acted in the interest of her clients, she explains that she did not regret her gesture. “I see absolutely nothing wrong with what I did. He came in at lunchtime and sat at the food stands every day. I have bills to pay and I work very hard to make customer delight.”
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