Heartbreaking video: adults get bullied too.

This video is heart breaking and if you haven’t yet seen it, you should.

Sixty-eight-year-old grandmother Karen Klein was sitting on a bus, when she was verbally bullied by a group of school students. Karen is a bus monitor – meaning it’s her job to ride the school bus and monitor the conduct of students – but this incident spun way out of her control.

The students were facing Karen and then (within hearing range) they began to make comments such as, “Oh my God, you’re so fat,”. The video below shows Karen bursting into tears and then doing her best to ignore the children, as they continue to call her a ‘dumb ass’, a ‘fat ass’ and then threaten to throw eggs at her house. They even prod her with their school books.

Someone nearby was recording the abuse on their phone and that footage has now gone viral.

(Warning: this footage is upsetting.)

After millions of people watched the humiliating 10-minute video, two of the children caught on tape sent letters apologising for their actions. The other two students’ parents sent notes on their behalf.

When asked about whether she accepted the apologies, Karen said “not really, you know I think they can do better than what they did.”As for a punishment? “The only thing I suggested (as punishment) was possibly not letting them on the bus next year and no sports,” she said. “Those were the only two punishments that I could think of. I want them to make sure they never do this to anyone again.”

Here is Karen being interviewed by Anderson Cooper in the days after the video went viral.

But here is where this sad story gets a little better and the worst aspects of human nature and matched by the best.

You see, the response from the rest of the world to this video – that has replaced the video itself, as what everyone is talking about.

Karen’s ordeal prompted an appeal, which aimed to raise $5000 to send Karen on a dream vacation.

That appeal has already netted over $500,000.

“I can’t even talk – that is my reaction. It is unbelievable what people have done,’ Karen said.