Search icon

Life

21st Mar 2014

Picture: Giraffe Shares Heartbreaking Goodbye With Dying Zoo Worker

This broke our hearts.

This is probably one of the most heartbreaking images we’ve ever seen.

An emotional picture has emerged from the Netherlands of the moment where a giraffe said its “goodbyes” to a dying zoo worker who spent most of his life working with the animals.

Mario, 54, who’s suffering from terminal cancer, asked to be taken to the giraffe enclosure at Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo and within minutes the animals approached him and began to share their affections.

giraf2

“You could see him totally light up,” said Kees Veldboer, founder of Ambulance Wish Foundation, which transported the worker to the zoo.

“It’s very special to see that those animals recognize him, and sense that he isn’t doing well,” he told newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

Topics: