It was the surprise of a lifetime today in Harwood, North Dakota. And it almost didn't happen at all.
Second grader Esmae Simonson was presenting her show and tell to her class at Harwood elementary school. It was all about the countries her father was visiting on his medical ship, the U.S.S. Mercy, on his six-month deployment to Southeast Asia. She hadn't seen him since April, but he'd sent packages of coins, letters and other mementoes of his adventures as he worked twelve to fourteen hour days setting up surgeries for the sick people who lined up by the hundreds to get the medical care the Navy ship and its people could provide.
Little did she know, her father, Lieutenant Commander Todd Simonson was rushing to the school to surprise his daughter.
At least, he was supposed to be.
It was all going well until he lay down for a brief nap, to clear away some of the exhaustion.
He woke up just in time to drive to the school to surprise Esmae as planned during her show and tell. And that's when he found out his truck wouldn't start.
"I was so disappointed. I really wanted to be there to surprise her," he said, in a car speeding toward the school, driven by school principal Jerry Barnum, forty minutes behind schedule. The brief panic in the school office sent most of the staff into confusion. At first, they thought his flight had been canceled -- and thought the whole event would have to be canceled with it. Then Barnum got the real story, and sprinted out the door.
"Stuck in your garage by your truck after you've crossed an ocean or two!" he laughed, with his passengers.
"I guess I don't know when it was started last," said Simonson.
Moments later, just as Esmae was wrapping up her presentation, the principal was by her side.
"Are you going to be excited to see your father?" asked Barnum.
And that's when Lt. Commander Simonson, spotless in his uniform, walked in and hugged his little girl.
Simonson said it can be hard to work on kids who are the age of his own children. But in helping other kids overseas, and in surprising his daughter at her school, the whole thing was worth it, he said, while Esmae, and most of the staff, wiped the tears from their eyes.
"Some of the surgeries we did were so fantastic. The cleft lip and palate surgeries, that changed these kids' lives forever," he said.
Simonson's six-month trip took him to Indonesia, the Phillippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.
He scheduled about 100 surgeries per day.
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