Letter Carrier Donna Moeller was delivering mail in February in a Cedar Rapids, IA, neighborhood when she heard a man yelling for help in a closed garage.
Moeller rushed to the garage door and knocked on it, and he told her: “I need an ambulance.”
The Postal Service employee asked the man’s neighbor to call 911 while she located a garage door opener and used it facilitate access.
The man, a customer in his 70s who lives alone, had fallen several hours earlier — on a morning with single-digit temperatures — while letting his dogs out.
Paramedics soon arrived and took him to a hospital, where he underwent surgery for a broken leg and dislocated hip.
The customer was discharged to a short-term care center to recover from his injuries.
“If Donna hadn’t come along when she did, he may have been left lying there for hours more in the frigid cold,” said local Customer Services Manager Monica Kehrli.