Nurse arranges for terminally ill father to see son’s football game

He says: ‘I was just so happy to see my son’

Nurse helps terminally ill father see his son's football game (iStock)

A terminally ill father was able to watch his son’s first high school football game of the season after his hospice nurse arranged a private flight.

In August, Scott Sullivan, 50, of Somerset, Kentucky, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, with doctors finding he had developed leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a complication of cancer in which the disease spreads to the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, CNN reports.

Even with treatment, overall survival is approximately two to four months, according to the National Institutes of Health.

After the diagnosis, Sullivan, who was only given a few weeks to live, was discharged home, where he was placed under the care of Jerree Humphrey, a nurse at Hospice of Lake Cumberland.

The pair formed a friendship, at which point Sullivan revealed his last wish was to be able to see his son Cade play in his first football game of his sophomore year at Pulaski County High School.

Humphrey was initially against the idea, as it was an away game, meaning it was a three-and-a-half hour drive away, and she believed it wouldn’t be safe for her patient.

"I thought: ‘You know you're talking seven or eight hours in the car’ and I said: ‘I don't know how safe that would be or how realistic,’" Humphrey told CNN.

However, rather than dismissing the idea, Humphrey reached out to a local airport for help. Her request was answered by a local dentist, Dr Denny Brummett, who offered to fly Sullivan to the game on his personal plane.

On 11 September, Humphrey, Brummett, Sullivan and his girlfriend flew about 200 miles to watch the game from a hill away from the fans.

When the high school student spotted his father, he ran up to him and gave him a huge hug.  

“Words could not be put into sentences or phrases to describe how I felt at that time," Sullivan told the outlet. "I was just so happy to see my son."

“You could just not help but cry,” Humphrey said of the moment between father and son. “He just embraced him so hard and was just so thankful for him to be there.”

On Facebook, where Hospice of Lake Cumberland recounted the story, many praised Humphrey and Brummett for their kindness, and shared their well-wishes for Sullivan. 

“This is what humanity looks like,” one person commented.

Another said: “That is so awesome. Continued prayers for Scott.”