Postal Service employees kept a watchful eye on some of the most vulnerable members of their communities — children — throughout 2017.
Blair, WI, Rural Carrier Associate Michael Ressel was a hero to a shivering, half-dressed little girl walking around alone in a desperate search for her mother, who’d gone out for groceries the night before and never returned.
In Londonderry, NH, Rural Carrier Denise Martel-Bastien comforted a 3-year-old boy she found shoeless and sobbing after he’d wandered away from home while following a cat.
Other employees were there for children in times of medical need.
Letter Carrier Eric Momsen of Berlin, WI, heard the screams of a frantic customer whose infant needed life-saving assistance before paramedics arrived on the scene.
Aaron Alessio, a distribution operations supervisor at the Pennwood Place, PA, Processing and Distribution Center, responded to poolside trouble, performing CPR on an 8-year-old girl who suffered a seizure and nearly drowned.
Elsewhere, employees such as Jacksonville, FL, Letter Carrier Joe Dawson and Seminary, MS, Rural Carrier Pat Pittman got kids out of harm’s way near busy roads.
In an Omaha, NE, neighborhood, Letter Carrier Noreen Mintken led two boys to safety as they fled an eruption of gunfire.
“My boss said I was a hero, but I didn’t really think much of it,” Mintken said. “I just did what I thought was right.”