(WSVN) - A cancer survivor claims he was asked to leave a South Carolina convenience store because of his disfigured face.
Fox News reports that 65-year-old Kirby Evans lost both his nose and his left eye seven years ago when he had surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.
Evans bought a snack and a drink at Forks Pit Stop on Monday, but when he sat down at a table inside the store to eat, a manager allegedly stopped him.
“Next thing I know, she jerked me into her office,” Evans recounted to WCIV.
He said the manager told him he was scaring away other customers, and said he had to cover his face to eat in the store or leave.
“The words that came out of her mouth hurt me so deep,” he said. “How can a person eat anything with his face covered?”
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Humiliated, he left the store in tears, then told his daughter Brandy what had happened.
Brandy then shared her father’s ordeal on Facebook, where it quickly went viral.
“My father was discriminated against because of the way he looks. He cannot help what the cancer did to him,” she wrote in the post. “My father is the strongest man I know, but — as he told me what happened to him — I watched tears roll out of his eye. It hurt me to see him hurt like this, especially over something he cannot help.”
A woman who identified herself as the store manager responded to the post, confirming what had happened and defending her position.
“I run a food service business where people dine in,” she replied on the public post. “I do not see absolutely anything wrong with what I did. He would come in at lunch time and sit at the food booths right at my busy time everyday. I have bills to pay to and I work very hard to please my customers.”
“I would never ever want to hurt anyone’s feelings but it was the kindest way I knew to come across to him,” she continued. “I had no choice! It was running my customers off.”
Her comment was later deleted, but not before others took screenshots of her response.
Brandy says her father cannot wear an eye patch because it “rubs the eye socket raw and where his nose was,” and said he cannot afford reconstructive surgery.
A GoFundMe page has since been created for Kirby, raising more than $34,000 by Friday evening.
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