Local plumbing company does hefty job for free after local man loses job with Yellow Freight

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — A local plumbing company is making the loss of a job a little easier for one local family.

Yellow Freight, a national trucking company, laid off thousands of workers about a month ago.

One of those now former workers lives in Columbus.

Eco Plumbing out of Hilliard was set to do a job for Scott Manausa. After finding out he lost his job, he sent a text to the automated system Eco uses, saying he couldn't afford it anymore.

Manausa thought it was all automated responses. Little did he know who was on the other line.

"The text said, 'Are you still interested in getting the work done that we gave you an estimate for?' and I responded saying 'Not at this time, I'm one of the 30k Yellow employees who lost their job,'" Manausa explained.

Unsure of where to go or what he was going to do, Manausa wasn't prepared for the next text that came through.

"It said, 'My heart goes out to you. I'm really sorry that this happened to you.' It was nice to have a human respond in a day in age where we have artificial intelligence," Manausa said.

So, who was on the other line?

A young man named Austin Sovann. He's worked for Eco Plumbers for close to five years.

"Life can suck, and the sun shines again the next day, but it's one of my personal mantras to be a decent human being," Sovann said. It's not hard to be nice to someone."

That text chain traveled to management. Eco said the job estimate was about $4,500.

So, this wasn't a small fix.

"We had to remove his toilet from his house, cut the plumbing that leads to the basement, and then re-pipe it all the way up," Eco Plumbers excavation director Travis Mershon told WSYX.

After finding out Manausa no longer had the means to pay for it, Eco showed up anyway and did the job for free.

"I was there, I met Scott," Mershon said, "and we just had a general conversation. He literally said, 'I don't deserve this,' and then I said, 'Well, no one deserves to have what happened happen, and that's why we're here to take care of you."

"To have that human empathy towards my situation, it felt good," Manausa said.

Eco said Manausa was a first-time customer.

While situations like this don't happen every day, Mershon says community needs will always be a priority.