A woman in Florida has been recorded deliberately coughing on a mom-of-10 and Mayo Clinic patient after throwing a tantrum in a Pier One store.
Per News4Jax, Heather Reed Sprague of Jacksonville says that she entered the store while waiting for an appointment, and soon encountered a female customer demanding that the staff refund her for an item that she hadn't even brought back to return.
When the irate customer positioned herself so that the staff could not exit their checkouts, Sprague started silently recording.
You can see the confrontation in the video below:In the video, the belligerent customer can be heard shouting at Sprague: "Do you really need this? What do you want to do - post it for you? How bout that?"
The angry woman - who is not wearing a face covering - then gestures her middle fingers at Sprague, before deciding to approach her.
She then says to Sprague, who was wearing a facemask: "I think I’ll get really close to you and cough on you then, how’s that?"
The woman then deliberately coughs on Sprague and calls her an "a**hole", as somebody off-camera can be heard saying: "Oh, wow. Nah-uh. No."
Sharing the video to Facebook, Sprague accompanied the video by writing in a lengthy post:
"Yesterday I learned firsthand the power of conscientious bystanders. It took 30 seconds to end 15 minutes of aggressive harassment.
"I’m a mother of ten, and currently a brain tumor patient at Mayo Clinic. Obviously, I don’t get out much right now.
"I had an appointment in the Town Center area, so I donned my mask and ducked into a store to escape the heat while I waited for my appointment time.
"There were two small children wandering around the store unattended for an extended period, and the little guy was doing the potty dance. It became apparent that they belonged to a woman at the register who was becoming increasingly belligerent.
"She was screaming at, swearing, insulting, and threatening the staff as she demanded to return an item she didn’t have with her, just a photo of the item on her phone. The staff were professional and respectful. But they couldn’t return an item she didn’t actually have with her.
"She continued to rage, all the while her poor little boy was squirming and asking for a bathroom, which she would have needed to leave the store to find.
"When she positioned herself so the clerks couldn’t exit the checkout area and screamed that she would stay right there, yelling as loud as she wanted, until all their customers left... I stood at a distance, pulled out my phone and wordlessly began filming.
"She immediately turned her attention away from the staff to me.
"The video tells the rest of the story."
Since sharing the video to Facebook yesterday (June 26), it has already been viewed more than 800,000 times. In the comments section, the mom-of-10 was also flooded with well-wishes and praise for how she handled the situation.
Sprague ended her post by explaining why she did not say anything throughout the video, and that she was now going to take a COVID test. She wrote:
"I did not speak, react, or engage. Simply stood to document the behavior. When bullies are faced with accountability they must acknowledge the unacceptability of their actions. Within 30 seconds of filming her tirade was done and she left the poor staff in peace.
"And hopefully her sweet boy got to find a potty. I’m off to find a Covid test, thanks Karen *cough, cough*"
