Trenton, NJ, Rural Carrier Margot Townsend was recently making deliveries when she grew concerned about an older customer whose mail was piling up.
Townsend knocked on the woman’s front door and heard her faintly calling out for help, but both the front and back doors were locked.
The Postal Service employee immediately alerted neighbors, who converged on the scene while emergency responders were dispatched.
Police officers and paramedics soon arrived and entered the woman’s home. They found that she was badly injured after falling several days earlier, and she was rushed to a hospital.
Bob Schaefer, president of the neighborhood homeowners association, later mailed a letter to the local Post Office.
Townsend’s “attentiveness delivered a second chance at life,” Schaefer wrote. He also included a proclamation issued by the association, expressing “warm appreciation and sincere gratitude for her heroic actions.”