Waitress Receives Huge Christmas Gift for Doing the Right Thing

She tried to do the right thing, and was rewarded twice for it.

ByABC News
December 23, 2013, 10:17 AM

Dec. 23, 2013— -- A Florida waitress who found $1,000 left behind on a table last week did the right thing with the money: She chased after the patron who she believed had left it behind on his way out of the restaurant.

But Samantha Knight, who waits tables at the Laishley Crab House in Punta Gorda, Fla., had handed the money over to the wrong customer. The next day, the man who actually had left the $1,000, Chuck Behm, called to claim it, according to ABC News station WLS.

"I feel really bad," Knight told WLS. "I wish I had just held on to it and waited for someone to call. But I thought I was giving it to the right guy."

Behm and Knight both assumed that the $1,000 was long gone. On Sunday morning, however, the man who accepted the money returned to the Laishley Crab House with the $1,000 in hand, and an extra $100 for Knight herself. He said he took the money by mistake, according to ABC affiliate WZVN.

Knight reached out to Behm, who in a surprise move, told Knight to keep the money. Knight, who is pregnant, said the $1,100 will go a long way toward her Christmas.

"Overwhelmed, I was crying earlier. I called my mom and was like I can't believe it," Knight said.