As a severe storm pounded the Phoenix area last week, employees at a PNC Bank branch rushed outside to pull a neighborhood food vendor and his cart to safety, an act captured on video that has since drawn more than a million views online.
The vendor, Hilario Cruz Cruz, had been selling food near the bank when the wind and hail hit. Video posted by someone inside the branch shows an employee bracing the door open as wind and hail battered the area, helping Cruz Cruz haul his cart through the entrance.
Cruz Cruz, speaking to FOX 10 Phoenix through a translator, described the moment.
“With one hand, I held the door against the strong wind blowing it, and with my other hand I pulled the cart inside. The young man was doing the same on his side. If I had been anywhere else, maybe they wouldn’t have been able to help me like that,” Cruz Cruz said.
Cruz Cruz said the bank employees weren’t strangers. They had been buying from his cart for years, and he believes that history is what prompted them to act when the storm hit.
“They said, ‘He’s not going anywhere else. He stays here, and we’re bringing the cart inside.’ I said, ‘It won’t fit,’ but the manager said, ‘I know it will,'” he recalled.
Cruz Cruz was soaked by the time the storm passed, and he had to pick his way home around fallen trees and branches. A week later, he was back on Peoria Avenue selling elotes and fresh fruit, and he said business has picked up considerably since the video spread online.
“I deeply appreciate my long-term customers. That’s why they didn’t leave me outside,” Cruz Cruz said. “I am profoundly grateful to the bank manager and employees because, thanks to them, nothing bad happened to me.”
Fox News Digital reported it had reached out to PNC Bank for additional comment.
