Volunteer Sam Lyons Got Fired for Searching for Christopher Barrios

Sometimes life is not right, Sam Lyons got permission from his Vice President to help search for the missing Christopher Barrios in southern Georgia. After the search he came down with a medical ailment and the company president fired him for missing too much work.

I could see if the man went AWOL and never told his company what he was doing that he should be fired, but to have the blessings of the company to participate in the search and then to have medical problems is no reason to terminate the man.

Sue Rodriguez, Christopher’s grandmother, says Lyons is an angel to the Barrios family. “He was out there everyday from daylight to dark looking for our baby,” said Rodriguez.

Lyons says he searched a few more days, then says he went back to work for two days. “At that time I was approached by the company president who told me he thought was I was doing was a very honorable thing, but that I needed to get my head back in the game and get back to work,” said Lyons.

Christopher’s body was found that same night.

It was a sleepless night for many people in Glynn County.

“I got up the next morning and had a stomach virus and I have Crohn’s Disease and anything can touch that off in the stomach,” said Lyons. “I was very sick off and on for several days, but I would still try to come back here and search. It would have been in vain to sit at a desk for eight hours a day.”

Lyons says he missed work until the following Friday. He says that’s when he was fired by the company president.via First Coast News