A Michigan Walmart has offered one worker who was fired for helping a woman being attacked in the superstore's parking lot his job back.
Following a storm of backlash from the public, the retail giant has decided to reverse their firing of employee Kristopher Oswald.
Walmart claimed that Oswald violated company policy after he spied a woman in the Hartland, Michigan location's parking lot being roughed up by her boyfriend and decided to step in. The boyfriend, angered by Oswald's interference, punched the Walmart employee in the head six times. The assailant's two friends then proceeded to beat Oswald up, the Daily Mail reported. The next day, Oswald was informed of his termination of employment.
But now, the company has told Oswald that he can come reclaim his spot at Walmart if he so chooses.
"We looked into the situation, reviewed the fact, talked to witnesses," Brook Buchanan, Walmart spokesperson, said Friday. "While Mr. Oswald broke a policy of ours - a policy put in place to protect our associates and our customers...we realize Mr. Oswald's intentions were good."
Oswald previously said that he wasn't sure he'd have any desire to go back to working for the retail giant if he was offered his job again. He told WXYZ-TV that he was surprised he'd be let go for doing a positive thing.
"I never expected all of this. And the least I expected was to not have a job," Oswald said on the local television network.
Company rules bars employees from intervening in customer altercations. Walmart wrote that Oswald was fired "after a violation of company policy on his lunch break."
"We had to make a tough decision. One that we don't take lightly, and he's no longer with the company," spokesperson Ashley Hardie told the Associated Press at the time.
Oswald reported that he was on his break, sitting in his car at about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday when he caught a glimpse of a man grabbing a woman, and it seemed he was trying to restrain her. When he got out of his car and asked the woman if she needed help, the man reportedly began attacking him, dealing blows to his head while yelling that he'd kill Oswald.
The woman did not sustain any serious injuries.
