An Ohio mom diagnosed with cancer said she was "very surprised" after police officers in her local community shaved their heads in solidarity with her.
Ali Campbell, 38, shared an emotional video post in January that showed her surrounded by her family and crying while getting her head shaved amid chemotherapy treatment.
"Everybody's always telling me how strong I am," Campbell told "Good Morning America." "[My] video was kind of just showing them, like, OK, now I'm doing this a second time. I want people to see that I'm not always that strong. Like, this sucks. But I also want them to see my family going through it with me, the emotional roller coaster."
Little did she know, a local police officer, Goshen Township Police Officer and K-9 handler Matthew Bucksath, had seen her video and was inspired to take action.
On Jan. 20, the Goshen Township Police Department shared a Facebook video featuring Bucksath and his fellow officers -- Goshen Police Chief Bob Rose, Officer Jamie McFarland and Officer Tyler Smith -- getting their heads shaved in solidarity with Campbell, while Sgt. Jeremy Skathes had his beard shaved.
Campbell said even though she was surprised by the officers' video, it was indicative of how supportive her fellow community members have always been.
"I'm watching these police officers all shave their head for me, like, our community is just like that. They've always rallied behind me," the mom of three said.
Bucksath told "GMA" he knew he wanted to do something after he saw Campbell's video.
"I watched it and was moved by it, of the raw emotion she showed in it, the raw emotion of her daughter Maci in the background crying because of her mom having her head shaved," Bucksath recalled. "I slept on it [and] the idea came to mind -- the best way to show her is to humble yourself and do the exact same thing. So I reached out to some fellow officers."
Bucksath said he and the other officers gathered on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to get their heads and beard shaved by another community member who is an aspiring cosmetologist and who had also lost her father to cancer two years ago.
"This was purely us trying to show someone in our community that we see her. She's not fighting this alone," the veteran police officer said.
Campbell said she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019 at the age of 33, after she found a lump during a self exam, despite not having any family history of cancer. She underwent chemotherapy, had a double mastectomy and radiation treatment, and is now back on chemotherapy to try to shrink tumors that spread to her bones.
Today, Campbell says she wants to encourage people to get mammograms at a younger age and advocate for insurance companies to cover them more widely.
"There's so much cancer out there in general. But since mine's breast cancer, I want women to just listen to me and please get a mammogram," said Campbell. "If I could save any life, that's what I'm going to try to do."
