An act of kindness was born out of tragedy when a Hamilton restaurant manager decided to pay for a customer’s bill out of her own pocket.

Lindsey Durham, a manager at Bermuda Restaurant Group, was working at Rosa’s Tex Mex restaurant on the Sunday after Hurricane Gonzalo when she came across the road crash involving Winston Jones, who later died of his injuries.

After comforting the man, and fetching his wife from her Devonshire home, Ms Durham returned to work shaken and soon learned that Mr Jones had died.

Later that day, customer Terriann Smith went to pay for her takeout but brought the wrong credit card and it was declined. Ms Durham, feeling emotional about what she had just experienced, went to her bag and said she would pay the $60 bill out of her own pocket.

When Ms Smith offered to drive back to her Southampton home and return the money that she owed, Ms Durham refused and simply told her: “Just bless someone else another day.”

Ms Durham told The Royal Gazette: “I was extra emotional when I got back from the scene and later hearing that he had died. I saw one of the lady’s daughters was crying and hungry I’m also a foster mom, and I couldn’t send her all the way to Southampton to get her [other] card. I believe in helping people, it will come back to you.”

Ms Smith was so taken by the act of kindness that she contacted this newspaper to sing Ms Durham’s praises. She wrote in an e-mail: “I believe that sometimes you should recognise people for what they do when they do it from their heart ...

“On my way out I spoke to another worker and I said, ‘your boss is lovely’ and she said to me ‘you wouldn’t believe she just helped that family who lost their loved one about an hour prior to me coming in’. She said she was broken up over it but continued to help her team.

“The waitress gave my two daughters colouring paper on our way out the door. I encourage people to support a small business that thinks more about Bermudians than I have seen in years. Keep pushing forward. I want to thank her and Rosa’s for their hard work and kindness.”

The restaurant group’s owner, Pamela Quarterly, added: “Lindsey is a great hearted human being and she reflects our company policy of being kind to people. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for people (with the storms) — the rules have changed.”