LIFE

Apple store worker wows mom of son with autism

Brad Schmitt
USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee
James Rink, 9, with Apple store worker Andrew Wall on the floor where James fell after smashing into a glass wall

The loud thud froze shoppers and employees and turned their stomachs Thursday.

A 9-year-old boy with autism ran, hard, into the glass wall at the Apple store in the Mall at Green Hills. The boy flew backward onto the floor and the mother – full of fear, mind racing – ran over and sank down next to him.

“I thought, ‘There’s going to be a pile of blood; he just cracked his skull open,” said the 50-year-old mom, LynnMarie Rink.

But none of that happened. The boy, James, was disoriented and hurt for a few moments, but soon, he got caught up watching shoppers pass by the Apple store through the glass wall into which he’d just crashed.

His mother was trying hard to keep it together when a store employee, Andrew Wall, quietly sat on the floor with them.

“Are you OK?” he asked. “What can I do for you?”

James Rink, 9, with his mom, LynnMarie Rink

Rink, shaky, asked Wall if they could finish shopping for an iPad and actually do the transaction on the floor. She wanted to keep her son there, quietly people watching, so as not to further upset him.

The mom also had brought along an iPad protective case, and she wanted that put on the iPad before it was handed to her son. Wall took the case in the back, put it on the new iPad and handed it to the boy.

Wall even sat on the floor to show the boy how to use his new iPad.

Rink – who has written and performed a one-woman show about raising a child with special needs – said she is very grateful to Wall for how he handled the situation.

“As a special needs parent, you don’t know what you’re going to encounter,” she said.

“Just meet me right where I am. Don’t make me stand up or stand out. We know we’re not normal but we try to be. And he just sat on the floor with us.”

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Rink is so grateful that she posted a thank-you on her Facebook. And that post has been picked up by many pages, including a “Love What Matters” page that features good deeds.

As of late Monday morning, the post has more than 1.3 million page views and it has been shared more than 20,000 times.

There even is a move afoot to have Wall featured on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on a “Be Kind to One Another” segment.

And the show has noticed.

"We have passed this along to our Human Interest Producer and they will look into it!" show publicist Erin Kyle wrote in an email Monday morning to The Tennessean.

Rink and Wall are blown away by the response.

Wall, a Belmont psychology grad, wrote to Rink:

“I began working at Apple in hopes of having fulfilling moments like this. My hopes are to work within the realm of youth counseling. Thanks again for making my day!”

Reach Brad Schmitt at 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.