Terminally ill child dies in Santa's arms
Published December 12, 2016 FoxNews.com


A 60-year-old Tennessee man who spends time volunteering as Santa Claus at a local hospital granted a 5-year-old terminally ill boy his final wish this holiday season, and held him as he died in his arms.

“I spent four years in the Army with the 75th Rangers, and I’ve seen my share of [stuff],” Eric Schmitt-Matzen told USA Today. “But I ran by the nurses’ station bawling my head off. I know nurses and doctors see things like that every day, but I don’t know how they can take it.”

Schmitt-Matzen, a mechanical engineer and president of Packing Seals & Engineering in Jacksboro, Tennessee, had arrived at the unidentified hospital and met the boy’s mother and family members, who were also unidentified. A nurse had called with the special request and given him a toy to offer the child during his visit, USA Today reported.
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“When I walked in, he was laying there so weak, it looked like he was ready to fall asleep,” Schmitt-Matzen told the news outlet. “I sat down on his bed and asked, ‘Say, what’s this I hear about you’re going to miss Christmas? There’s no way you can miss Christmas! You’re my No. 1 elf!’”

“He looked up and said, ‘I am?’ I said ‘Sure.’”

Schmitt-Matzen told USA Today that he watched him open the present and smile before he lay back down.

“’They say I’m going to die,’ he told me. ‘How can I tell when I get to where I’m going?’ I said, ‘Can you do me a big favor?’ He said ‘Sure!’ 'When you get there, you tell them you’re Santa’s No. 1 elf and I know they’ll let you in.’ He said, ‘They will?’ I said, ‘Sure.’”

“He kind of sat up, and gave me a big hug and asked one more question: ‘Santa can you help me?’ I wrapped my arms around him. Before I could say anything, he died right there. I let him stay, just kept hugging and holding on to him,” Schmitt-Matzen told USA Today.

The boy’s death left Schmitt-Matzen questioning whether he could continue donning the signature white beard and red suit, but he returned for other sick children and saw the effect it had on them.

“When I saw all those children laughing, it brought me back into the fold. It made me realize the role I have to play. For them and for me,” he told USA Today.

It just proves that no matter how bad the situation, there is always room for joy and happiness. I'm just glad that this kid got the chance to experience that one last time before his journey to the hereafter.

 Frazzled wrote:

It just proves that no matter how bad the situation, there is always room for joy and happiness. I'm just glad that this kid got the chance to experience that one last time before his journey to the hereafter.

Thanks for finding that point. I was having a hard time with this one.

Did you see that story about a 5-year-old boy and his dying wish to see Santa Claus? Of course you did. The heartbreaking tale has been seen and heard by millions of people around the world. It went viral earlier this week when it was retold by virtually every major news outlet. The only problem? It’s almost certainly fake.

As the story goes, an unnamed 5-year-old boy was dying in the hospital and had just one last wish: He wanted to see Santa Claus. The nurse called up a professional Santa she knew, Eric Schmitt-Matzen, who rushed to the hospital. The boy and Santa had a chat about heaven before the boy literally died in Santa’s arms. But the small Tennessee newspaper that originally published the story, the Knoxville News Sentinel, just retracted it.

“Since publication, the News Sentinel has done additional investigation in an attempt to independently verify Schmitt-Matzen’s account. This has proven unsuccessful,” the newspaper explains.


“They say I’m gonna die,” the young boy allegedly told Santa in the story that has since circulated far and wide. “How can I tell when I get to where I’m going?”

“When you get there, you tell ’em you’re Santa’s Number One elf, and I know they’ll let you in,” Santa replied.

The last words of the boy, according to Santa/Schmitt-Matzen were, “Santa, can you help me?” The boy supposedly died right there in Santa’s arms and the boy’s mother rushed into the room, crying hysterically.

“No, no, not yet!” she supposedly screamed as Santa handed her dead son to her. Strangely, Schmitt-Matzen said that he left as fast as he could.

Schmitt-Matzen, a 60-year-old professional Santa who looks “straight out of Central Casting,” has told multiple news organizations that he’s simply trying to protect the identity of the family involved. But it’s not just the name of the boy that we don’t know. Santa won’t give anyone the name of the hospital, the name of the nurse who summoned him, or even a precise date for when it occurred. Schmitt-Matzen says it was “about a month ago.”

Many people have started to poke holes in the story, noting that it seems quite unlikely that a child who was dying could have a coherent conversation with another person and then die moments later. Multiple independent news outlets, including the Associated Press have tried to confirm the story and have come up completely empty-handed.

“The News-Sentinel report didn’t include details on the boy or the hospital,”the Associated Press noted in their short retelling of the story. “Schmitt-Matzen didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.”

Later, CNN called every hospital in the area and couldn’t find anyone to corroborate the story. The website Mediaite has even been scouring the obituaries in the area looking for “anything close to a 5-year-old boy dying” and have found nothing. Even Schmitt-Matzen’s wife seems to have been conveniently not home around the time that the sad story happened—which, again occurred on a date that Schmitt-Matzen can’t seem to remember precisely.

Unfortunately, every piece of evidence points to this heart-wrenching story simply being fake. As my wife said when I told her that the story is probably a hoax: “2016 was the year that the whole world learned that Santa wasn’t real.”