In Alabama, he gave a homeless man the coat off his back - literally

When a stranger in Birmingham, Ala., saw an apparently homeless man standing out in the cold Saturday, he did more than toss him a few dollars.

Birmingham ophthalmic assistant Briana DiGiogio was in her car when she saw it happen, and shared a video of the man’s act of kindness on Facebook.

In the video, the stranger, dressed in a light blue jacket, is seen wrapping a heavy winter coat around the homeless man’s arms and securing a scarf around his neck. The two men give each other a warm embrace, and the stranger says “Zip it up and stay warm. I’ll go get you some food and bring it back to you, alright?” as the man nods.

“Oh my Gosh,” DiGiorgio says as the stranger walks back across the road and gets back in his car. At the time, the temperature was around 30 degrees in Birmingham.

“I was in tears. This is the kind of people we need more of in this world. This is absolutely beautiful,” she wrote after she posted the video on Facebook. That video, shared Saturday afternoon, has now been seen nearly 800,000 times and has been shared more than 13,000 times.

DiGiorgio told AL.com she didn’t talk to the man, but knew he “had a heart of gold” and that his generosity gave her “a huge renewed faith in humanity.”

The site identified the good Samaritan as Dr. Rees Oliver, a Birmingham-area neonatologist. WBMA also found Jim Hickson, the man who received the gift.

He told the station he had been homeless for 14 years, and said people have opened their hearts to him before. “People have done that stuff around here all the time,” he said. “Well since I've been homeless I've been more blessed out here then when I had a job and the bells and everything else.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2018 at 9:32 AM with the headline "In Alabama, he gave a homeless man the coat off his back - literally."