First Responders Answer the Call for Cancer Patient's Christmas
Rustburg, VA - Christmas came early for the Norman family in Rustburg when their 5-year-old son Nathan decided putting up the family Christmas tree would help him fight his cancer.
His spirit of the season has spread to people and places his family never thought possible. But recently, he's been getting a lot of attention from first responders from all over the place, all thanks to the power of this little boy's message and the Internet.
A special delivery straight from the Big Apple arrived at Nathan's front door on Thursday after word spread that a little boy in Rustburg was fighting a stubborn cancer with his love of Christmas.
It's the kind of story that hit home for Joseph Scarpantio.
"I'm a New York City paramedic and a cancer survivor myself from stage 2 lymphoma," Scarpantio said.
Instead of just sending a Christmas card, Scarpantio wanted to drive down and deliver Christmas to Nathan's front door.
"As soon as I started to say what I was doing, all of my partners at work said, 'Scarp, count me in. Say no more. If you are going down there to Virginia, say no more we are going with you to Virginia,'" Scarpantio said.
Dawn Norman, Nathan's mom, said the support is humbling.
"Just today alone we've had secret service from Washington DC, firefighters and EMS from New York, police from South Carolina that have come to visit our family today."
One little post about Nathan on the website Wish Upon a Hero sounded the call to first responders - over 31,000 have viewed it so far. The boxes of good will have started to pile up in the last couple of weeks since it was posted.
Just like in the Christmas story Nathan loves so much, his visitors come baring gifts, but it's the love this family feels far beyond their own back door that really embodies the Christmas story.
"God bless the Norman family and God bless Nathan," Scarpantio said.
Those EMTs will bring something back up to New York from the Norman family - Christmas gifts for children fighting cancer at hospitals in the New York area.
