• The 54-year-old is suffering from a terminal cancer
• He’d spent much of his adult life working at the Dutch zoo
• The man, known only as Mario, asked that his hospital bed be wheeled into the giraffe enclosure so he could say goodbye
• One giraffe approached Mario, giving the dying man a kiss
  

This is the touching moment a giraffe bid a sad farewell to a dying worker who’d spent his entire adult life cleaning their enclosure at a Dutch zoo.

The 54-year-old maintenance worker, who’s suffering from a terminal cancer, asked that his hospital bed be wheeled into the giraffe enclosure at Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo. In a heartbreaking scene, one of the giraffes approached the man, known only as Mario, and appeared to give him a kiss goodbye.

Heartbreaking: The touching moment a giraffe said goodbye to a terminally ill worker at a Dutch zoo

Special bond: The giraffe approached the man's hospital bed, and appeared to give the 54-year-old a kiss goodbye

‘These animals recognised him, and felt that (things aren’t) going well with him,’ Kees Veldboer, founder of the Ambulance Wish Foundation – which transported Mario to the zoo – told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

‘(It was) a very special moment. You saw him beaming.’ 

Mario, who’s mentally disabled, then asked for a moment to say goodbye to his colleagues at the zoo, where he spent the vast majority of his adult life. 

‘It was very nice that we were able to work on the last wish of this man,’ Mr Veldboer said.

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