Wave of good guys come to pond victim's rescue

(WJBK) - The victim of a "Hall of Shame" contractor gets the pond he's been waiting for - as some heroes came to the rescue.

"Totally awesome," Luther said. "I can't believe it."

Believe it Luther. There were about 30 people working in your yard building your custom - a pond water feature you've waited two summers to get.

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And these kind contractors did it out of the goodness of their hearts. Seven companies came out to donate their time and money.

These professional aquascape contractors are actually competitors who worked  together to right a wrong that started with my Hall of Shame story that aired less than two weeks ago.

Luther hired a guy named Wes from a pond company in April of 2016.  Wes took a $2,900 deposit and was supposed to build Luther a waterfall leading into a stagnant pond on his property.

But all last summer Wes never did the job.  First he said he was hurt, and then claimed his company was filing for bankruptcy.  But Wes never filed for bankruptcy he just took the money and never came back.

Luther contacted me this spring when he saw Wes still advertising for new business. And sure enough, when my producer called Wes to see if he would take on a new job, the pond guy took the bait.

Right before my story aired, Wes sent Luther a check for $2,600 and wanted Luther to get me to kill the story.  But Luther wanted Wes exposed. 

After all, Wes had taken Luther's money and never did anything until after I confronted him with a TV camera rolling.  I put Wes in the Hall of Shame.

Jeff from Pondering Waters saw the story which aired on a Wednesday night.

"Went through the night, went through the morning, got to a job site and then something clicked," Jeff said. "(I thought) we really need to do something."

Jeff called Dan from Putt's Pond who also saw the story.

"Like Jeff said, we want to right a wrong," Dan said.

Wolchek: "And that's what you guys are doing."

"That's what we're doing," he said.

Soon they lined up a bunch of good guy aquascape companies from all over. Some were even from other states, like Chris from Chicago.

"We donated all the raw material goods that go underneath, not the artistic stuff that goes on top but all the stuff that makes this thing hum,” he said.

And now they went to Luther's house and did the job all in one day. By 4 p.m. they were ready for Luther to get the river rolling. And as the stream water flows, Luther begins to tear up as well.

"That's beautiful, absolutely beautiful," he said.

These good guys wanted to make sure everyone knows they stand with Luther - and not with the contractor who did Luther wrong.

"It was bad that he did that to somebody," Jeff said. "But it was worse that he did that to a veteran.  And that doesn't sit well with a lot of us."

Luther's dreams were dead in the water until these good guys came out of the clear blue.

"I got my sitting rock over there," Luther said. "I can go sit on the rock and listen to the water go pass by and it's awesome."

The 10 contributors who helped Luther were:

Aquascape
Ponding Waters
Put's Ponds & Gardens
Living Water Landscape Service
Haley Stone
R&A Water Features & Landscape
Aquascape - Indiana
Premiere Aquascapes
Poseidon Ponds & Gardens
Ray Wiegand's Nursery