Nursing home's farewell for veteran goes viral

Video of a South Carolina nursing home honoring a veteran after his death has gone viral. (Laura Dorn)

Video of a veteran’s flag-draped stretcher leaving a South Carolina nursing home after his death last week has gone viral.

The Richard M. Campbell Veterans Nursing Home in Anderson paid tribute to Air Force vet Douglas Timmons after he died Wednesday following a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was 81.

“Even at 5 am this morning with the few people that were available…they still honored him on his way out,” Timmons’ daughter Laura Dorn said in a Facebook post. She told Fox News Monday her father was living in Kershaw, S.C., when he enlisted in the Air Force after the Korean War at age 17.

As of noon Monday, the Facebook post has been viewed more than 5.8 million times and shared more than 136,000 times.

At one point in the video, the two attendants escorting the stretcher down the nursing home's hallway are seen coming to a halt and standing at attention as a recording of a bugler playing Taps is heard.

Fox Carolina quoted Dorn as saying the nursing home has a tradition of honoring the fallen heroes with a procession through the hallways after they pass on.

“They were good enough to arrive through the front door, so we want them to leave through the front door,” nursing home director Russell Evatt said.

Dorn said she recorded the video for her sisters to watch because they could not be there and then posted it on Facebook.

She said she has received messages from people all across the world, offering their condolences and gratitude for her father’s service, the station reported.

Timmons' survivors include 15 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.