LATEST: Owner's lawyer says situation handled "appropriately"

UPDATE: Salon owner to issue statement

PORTAGE, MI – A Facebook post about a Portage salon owner berating a mother whose autistic toddler was acting out during a haircut is going viral on the internet.

Vanessa Hunt, of Battle Creek, authored a lengthy Facebook post about her experience at M Spa Salon, at 2276 E. Centre Ave. in Portage, on Sunday evening.

By Monday afternoon, the post had been shared more than 17,000 times and online users from Florida to California were filling out angry online user reviews of the business at various sites, including Yelp.com and Yahoo.com.

Hunt said she and a friend were getting manicures at the salon Saturday. She said a toddler was crying while getting a haircut when she witnessed the owner of the salon, Michelle Mott, give the mother “ a severe tongue lashing” and tell her "how inappropriate her son's behavior was." The mother left with her son, followed by the hair stylist who was cutting the young boy's hair.

“It was seriously painful to watch,” Hunt said in the Facebook post. “At the conclusion of this woman's tantrum, the mother said through tears, ‘I'm so sorry, he's autistic.’ I walked outside to see the hairstylist finishing the little boy's haircut on the lawn – The mom, still crying and cradling her precious son. We hugged her and cried with her too. It was so awful to see this.”

Hunt, who has 600 friends on Facebook, said she is unsure how the post is getting so much attention.

She said she is receiving hundreds of messages from people who have read her post, has been contacted by former colleagues of Mott and has since made contact with the family of the boy thanking her for her support. Hunt said she was monitoring comments on M Spa’s Facebook page, until the page was removed on Monday.

“People were commenting from Switzerland and Australia,” Hunt said. “I don’t understand how it got this big. This was not my intention and I’m almost bothered by how much attention it’s getting, but I’m glad I said something because I think it’s the right thing to do. I think people need to be aware that things like this happen all the time.”

Hunt said she hopes the whole ordeal dies down soon, especially some of the negative feedback she is seeing online. Other area salons are posting on Facebook about the situation and are offering the mother and the child complimentary haircuts.

MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette was unable to reach Mott on Monday but was in contact with her mother, Marty Mott, who declined to comment on the situation because she was not there, but confirmed her daughter was distraught.

“I didn’t know social media had this kind of power,” Hunt said. “This was nothing I ever imagined.”

Contact Ursula Zerilli at uzerilli@mlive.com. Follow her on twitter.