Neighbor takes Dearborn man with special needs on ride to remember
DEARBORN, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Ibrahim Hamed lives in Dearborn, and loves visiting his grandparents in Cleveland without his mom, but make no mistake about it, he is not your average 23-year-old.
When describing her son, Yasmeen Mansour Hamed says "self-motivated."
He is special, not only because he has special needs.
"Ibrahim has cerebral palsy, that's what he was diagnosed with. When he was 11 months, at about three and a half-four years old, I called his teacher and I said I think my son's autistic and that's when he was diagnosed," Hamed says.
Today, he is literally a TikTok star.
"It just kind of happened. During COVID, I was bored, so I was like, what's this TikTok thing? And I downloaded it, and I uploaded a video of Ibrahim. I just posted it, just not thinking anyone's going to see it and it just went viral," Yasmeen Hamed said.
Ibrahim gets fan mail to the tune of his 1.4 million followers from across the world.
From phone calls to toe-tapping in Turkey and twinkling with toddlers, to telling jokes, twirling to his favorite song and even visiting his favorite bakery in town, Ibrahim and his family have helped capture the hearts of many including a neighbor with a very special truck.
A video of his ride in the truck was shared on TikTok last week, garnering nearly 1,000 likes as of Friday afternoon.
"They're actually our neighbors, Detroit Furniture. He loves the truck. He loves the idea of the truck. He loves riding a truck. He told me he wanted to buy himself a truck and if you see the video, he literally just jumped in. He didn't ask questions, just jumped in the truck and closed the door in my face," Hamed said laughingly about her son.
Surprised but excited, Ibrahim reacted how most of his followers could have predicted, full of joy and fast enough to get away from his mother.
"He didn't care if I was going to the bakery. He didn't care who was meeting him. He didn't care how he's getting home. He just knew he's getting that ride," Yasmeen Hamed said.
Just like in his videos, Ibrahim closed the door on his mom riding along but what she and many continue to open themselves up to is not only Ibrahim's humor, including waking up his brother or sister every morning with his beautiful singing voice, but also the life lessons they have learned from him along the way.
"He's 6-foot 2 (inches), and he's a big boy. Sometimes, he'll stand where he'll rock or cover his ears or make sounds and I know you'll want to look at it, but just be kind. If everybody just showed a little kindness, I think it goes a long way," Yasmeen Hamed said.