KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A man visiting his wife and newborn son was in for a shocker Saturday, not by the birth of his child, but by a knock on his wife’s hospital door from police. They had a photo of him captured from surveillance video.
“I thought, ‘Oh, what do they think I’ve done?” Jack Fortner said.
Fortner was a little leery when a security guard showed him surveillance video of himself in a black jacket and cap. When asked if the picture was him, he responded in the affirmative, thinking he was being accused of something.
“At first I was just kind of like, ‘Oh no, something happened and I was in the area at the time and now I’m inadvertently involved in something,’” Fortner said.
Turns out Fortner dropped a 100 dollar bill from his pocket outside of the maternity ward, money he needed to pay for his newborn son’s pictures.
“I saw the guy get on the elevator and he looked like my patient’s husband but we weren’t sure ‘cause he had a coat and hat on. So we knew what time frame, so they went and looked at the security footage,” nurse Angie Womack said.
Womack is a nurse at North Kansas City Hospital and said it never occurred to keep the money because she said if she lost 100 bucks, she would hope someone would do the same for her.
“It was just an amazing thing that someone would do. It’s not unbelievable because I know there are good people out there, but you don’t come across as many of them as you do people who would have just taken that money and left me in a situation,” Fortner said.
Fortner said he’s thankful the nurse is honest and took the time to have security look through the hospital’s surveillance video to return his hard earned money.
“He actually looked like he was going to cry. He was very excited and very thankful,” Womack said.
“I really appreciate those nurses, not just for this, but for everything. They were just awesome,” Fortner said.
Fortner operates a forklift for a crane company and said $100 is a lot of money to him. In fact, he said it takes him almost a day-and-a-half to make $100.
