The loud thud she just heard might have been a car accident, Letter Carrier Grace Pott thought, as she recently delivered mail in an Oak Forest, IL, neighborhood.
But Pott quickly realized it was a much different kind of emergency when she looked around and saw that a resident had apparently thrown a body into a van with brute force before storming into his home.
Pott called 911 and directed responding police officers to the van. They found a woman in urgent need of medical assistance and contacted paramedics.
Upon further investigation, officers determined that the woman was the man’s mother.
They suspected that he intended to kill her, before killing himself, and they credited Pott with likely preventing such a tragedy.