A Florida nursing home worker has sparked outrage on social media after a TikTok video of him mocking and verbally abusing an elderly man went viral.
The video, shared by Twitter user @tummymuncher, was later reposted by popular account @libsoftiktok.
'Go Into the Kitchen and Fix Yourself Something to Eat'
In the 28-second clip, originally posted by TikTok user Brandon Hatcher who goes by @_lulbrando, shows him eating what appears to be chicken as he switches to his rear-facing camera to reveal a white elderly man sitting across the table.
The TikTok video then cuts back to Hatcher as he asks the senior, "Oh, you's hungry?"
Hatcher then scoffs and takes another bite of the chicken before telling the old man, "I advise you go into the kitchen and fix yourself something to eat."Hatcher reiterates his statement as the old man finds it difficult to hear what he's saying.
"I'm so hard of hearing," the elderly man seemingly says before Hatcher cuts him off with a verbal attack as the video runs out. Watch the clip below:
Hatcher Works Identified as a Nursing Home Worker in Tallahassee
Hatcher was identified as a 19-year-old nursing home assistant employed with the Seven Hills Health & Rehabilitation in Tallahassee, Florida, and has close to 200K followers on TikTok.
The video has since gone viral on Twitter with over 500,000 views and hundreds of comments with netizens slamming Hatcher and calling on the nursing home facility to fire him.
"This nursing home worker is a vile human being. Abusing an elderly man all for TikTok clout. They need to fire him immediately," wrote one user, while another commented, "Are people this evil that they would record this just for likes?"
Meanwhile, others drew attention to the mistreatment of elders in nursing homes.
"Moral of the story : do not leave your parents when they need you the most. the cycle will repeat when you yourself are a parent," tweeted one user, while another wrote, "I would be livid if that was my parent."
Hatcher Issues Apology
In a follow-up video posted on his TikTok account, Hatcher apologized for the video in "an appeal to the board of nursing" and said he reached out to the elderly man's family.
"Upon learning how offensive that video was, I immediately went to the family and tried to make matters right on my own initiative," he said as he sat alongside a woman he claims is his mother. "I showed them the video and explained to them what I had done."
Hatcher added that his mother, his grandmother and his great grandmother were all nurses before weirdly veering off-topic about his mother working as a prostitute, which she denies.
Gadsen County Sheriff's Office Investigating the Video
A Twitter user pointed out that the Gadsden County Sheriff's Office received an official complaint from the elderly man's family and were actively investigating the case.
