Jeffrey Alexander, a letter carrier in Toledo, OH, was delivering mail on a Monday in December when he heard a customer screaming for help outside her residence.
Alexander rushed to aid the woman, who is disabled and relies on her sister for care.
“Jeff! Jeff!” the woman shouted. Her sister was on the floor, she said, and wasn’t moving.
Alexander rushed to check on the sister, who was barely conscious and unclothed — save for a baby blanket the disabled woman had placed on her — in a house warmed by a lone space heater.
When he asked her what was wrong, she could only mutter in response:
“It’s so cold.”
The Postal Service employee immediately called 911 for the disabled woman, who told him her sister had been on the floor for several days.
Emergency responders soon arrived and Alexander advised them that the disabled woman couldn’t care for herself.
Her sister was hospitalized.
“We’re observers,” Alexander later told the local CBS affiliate. “We’re public servants, so that’s our job to be observant all the time.”
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, he assisted the disabled woman further by bringing her food and feeding her dogs for her.