A woman takes to social media to thank a fellow airline passenger for stepping in after she was body shamed.

“Hey babe, I can’t believe this,” the text said. “I’m sitting next to a smelly fatty.”

They’re words never meant to be seen.

“Can’t even put the armrest down, I’m going to vomit. I’m stuck by this fatty,” the text said.

Those were words that struck Chase Irwin.

“When I saw her crying, it really hit me hard,” Irwin said. “I actually got really sick to my stomach.”

In large fonts, “smelly fatty” was one of the bright texts he could read from a passenger across the aisle on a United flight.

The stranger was describing the woman sitting right next to him.

“I’m a girl, and I battle things like that every single day,” passenger Savannah Phillips said.

But she read it too. 

“I just started praying for him, and I didn’t know what else to do, and I started crying and I couldn’t stop,” Phillips said.

Phillips prefers to sit by herself because she says she’s self-conscious about her weight.

The mother of two never expected someone to stick up for her.

“He tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘I need to talk to you,'” Phillips said. “And the guy took his earphones out and turned around and Chase said, ‘We’re switching seats right now.'”

“He thanked me and said, ‘Can I ask why?'” Irwin said. “I said absolutely. I said because you’re a heartless person, and I read your text and the girl next to you crying and she also read your text and you should take into consideration other people’s feelings.”

Irwin and Phillips talked about their families and eventually went their separate ways after the flight.

She thanked Irwin on Facebook and reminded folks that words have the power to hurt and uplift.

“I do feel more beautiful today,” Phillips said.

Savannah’s post now has several hundred shares on Facebook.

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