Cancer Survivor Says Store Manager Asked Him To Cover Disfigured Face
Follow KDKA-TV: Facebook | Twitter
WALTERBORO, S.C. (CBS Local) -- A South Carolina man who lost one of his eyes and his nose while battling cancer is speaking out after he was told he was scaring away customers at a convenience store.
Kirby Evans, 65, says he stopped for donuts and a drink Tuesday at a Forks Pit Stop store in Walterboro.
Shortly after he sat down to eat, he said the manager "jerked me into her office" and told him he was scaring away customers and asked him to cover his face or leave.
Days after a cancer survivor says he was told to cover his face while eating donuts at a Walterboro store, several people met him for breakfast at a different restaurant.
— Lisa Weismann (@LisaLive5) October 11, 2018
Kirby Evans lost his eye & nose, but his daughter says his smile is back, thanks to that breakfast club. pic.twitter.com/9X6qMyLQSH
Evans said he has been eating at Forks for a long time and this is the first time he was asked to cover his face.
"It hurt deep inside," Evans told WCSC. "I've never been treated like that. Never."
Evans had surgery seven years ago to remove basal-cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, from his face. His left eye and entire nose were removed, leaving his face disfigured.
Evans said he cannot afford reconstructive surgery and can't wear an eye patch because the skin around his eye is too sensitive.
Evans' daughter, Brandy Evans, has created a GoFundMe to cover her father's reconstructive surgery costs. She posted about the incident on Facebook.
"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," Brandy wrote. "It hurt me to see him hurt like this, especially over something he cannot help."
A woman who identified herself as the manager responded the post.
"I do not see absolutely anything wrong with what I did," Donna Alderman-Crosby wrote. "He would come in at lunch time and sit at the food booths right at my busy time everyday. I have bills to pay [too] and I work very hard to please my customers and I would never ever want to hurt anyone's feelings but it was the kindest way I knew to come across to him."