Six days ago, Tim Tebow helped a woman whose husband suffered a heart attack on a flight from Atlanta to Phoenix. Although Tebow said nothing about it, a passenger’s Facebook post went viral, being shared 19,000 times and picked up by outlets like Sports Illustrated and US Weekly.

Richad V. Gotti wrote that on the flight an older man got sick and then fell unconscious. “Strangers from all over the world and every ethnicity [came] to the help of this man for over an hour!” he wrote.

Whether it was chest compressions, starting an IV, helping breathe life into this man, or praying everyone helped! I listened to shock after shock from the AED machine and still no pulse. No one gave up.

The Delta Airlines staff were “amazing,” he said. Then, “all of a sudden, I observed a guy walking down the aisle. That guy was Tim Tebow. He met with the family as they cried on his shoulder! I watched Tim pray with the entire section of the plane for this man.” The picture with his post shows Tebow with his arm around the woman’s shoulder comforting her.

When the plane finally landed in Phoenix, Tebow got the woman’s luggage and used the car waiting for him to take her to the hospital. He stayed with her until the doctors told her that her husband had died. And never said a word about it.

The Sports Illustrated story began “You already knew Tim Tebow was a good guy, but here’s even more evidence to prove it.” A Star News reporter wrote “Tebow’s unselfishness speaks volumes about his character. A lot of professional athletes are criticized for staying away from people. Tebow didn’t think twice about giving up his entire day for a stranger.”

TDS Sufferers Disagree

Hard to disagree, you would think. But not everyone thinks so.

Orlando Sentinel reporter David Whitley is annoyed with those who have what he calls “Tebow Derangement Syndrome,” or TDS.

The malady triggers foaming at the mouth among two groups. One believes Tebow would be a great pro quarterback if only the anti-Christian NFL hadn’t blackballed him. That has waned a bit as Tebow has drifted into other ventures.

The other group just hates him. That strain of TDS, he writes, “appears to have no cure.” He read the comments on the stories in the mainline media and found, apparently to his surprise, that while about 60% praised Tebow, 40% criticized him. Tebow critics hit at him with comments like “Tebow is the male equivalent of a Kardashian. Maybe he ought to change his name to Kim” and “Prayed? Give me a break. Get out of the way and let modern medicine take care of the sick. Idiot.”

Whitley was, as we said, annoyed. “Something tells me if that person had been Rob Gronkowski [the New England Patriot’s star tight end] the commenter would have been fine with the story,” he writes, and concludes the article: If Tebow’s actions make “you want to throw up, it says a lot more about you than it does Tim Tebow.”

It says you have a bad case of TDS and made you write mean, foolish comments on newspaper articles. Worse, it’s blinded you to kindness and stories that should make you a little happier — if you didn’t hate Tim Tebow so much.