When being Santa's your job, one of the main duties is keeping kids happy.
For Eric Schmitt-Matzen, who plays Santa at 80 festive events every year in his hometown of Caryville, Tennessee, that meant rushing to the bedside of a terminally-ill child whose last wish was to see Santa.
Speaking to USA Today, Eric, 60, said: “I’d just gotten home from work that day. The telephone rang, it was a nurse I know who works at the hospital. She said there was a very sick 5-year-old boy who wanted to see Santa Claus."
Eric told the nurse he'd put his costume on and go to the hospital, but she told him there wasn't enough time.
He raced to the Intensive Care Unit and found the boy "laying there, so weak it looked like he was ready to fall asleep. I sat down on his bed and asked, ‘Say, what’s this I hear about you’re gonna miss Christmas? There’s no way you can miss Christmas! Why, you’re my Number One elf!'"
The boy's mother, who was watching through a window outside the hospital room, had given Eric a PAW Patrol toy to give to her son.
He said he was "so weak he could barely open the wrapping paper", and heartbreakingly, asked Eric he if he could help him.
Eric says the boy told him: "They say I'm gonna die. How can I tell when I get to where I'm going?"
"When you get there, you tell ’em you’re Santa’s Number One elf, and I know they’ll let you in," Eric replied.
The little boy then hugged him and asked, "Santa, can you help me?" before passing away in his arms. Eric desribes how he "just kept hugging and holding on to him".
Eric was so affected by the emotional encounter, that he considered putting his Santa suit away for good.
"I spent four years in the Army with the 75th Rangers, and I’ve seen my share. But I ran by the nurses' station bawling my head off," he says, adding that he cried all the way home from the hospital.
Big-hearted Eric’s touching tale has since been shared worldwide.
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