Family looking for good Samaritan

Published 8:30 pm Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Cullman Regional

A Cullman County family is looking for the good Samaritan who came to the aid of the family patriarch last Friday at Cullman Regional Medical Center.

Jamie Abbott said her father-in-law, 67-year-old Ronald Abbott, was at CRMC in Professional Building 2 to get his second covid shot, and went into the men’s room. At some point, she said, he collapsed.

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Eventually, a man came in and found him, called for help and began administering CPR. Ronald Abbott died the following day, but his family wants that stranger to know how grateful they are to him.

“I just want to say thank you for being a good Samaritan and helping my father-in-law, and if there was anyway we could repay him . . . we can’t thank him enough for what he did,” said Jamie Abbott.

She reached out to area newspapers, while a family member posted on Cullman Facebook groups, seeking the good Samaritan. So far, they’ve heard from one witness who didn’t know the man but described him as being around six feet tall, with grey hair and a beard. 

They hope they can personally thank the man who came to the aid of Ronald Abbott, a widower who had been married 42 years and “touched a lot of lives,” according to Jamie. “He was loving and caring and would give the shirt off his back to anyone.”

His family – three sisters, two sons, their wives and six grandchildren – are hoping someone knows the stranger who came to the aid of a man the kids called “Pop-pop.”

“Somebody is bound and determined to know who it is,” said Jamie.

Services for Ronald Abbott will be Friday at 2 p.m. at Mountain Grove Baptist Church in Hanceville.