Letter Carrier Christopher Meyer was making deliveries on a frigid January day in Des Moines, IA, when he spotted an older customer lying on the sidewalk in front of her home.
Meyer stopped to check on the woman, who had fallen while checking her mail and had been ignored by passersby for 20 minutes in conditions with a wind chill factor of 5 below zero.
The Postal Service employee safely helped the customer get on her feet and inside her residence. He also retrieved the mail she dropped when she fell.
Word of the incident spread when home security video footage was posted on social media.
“If it was my mother or my grandma, I’d want someone to help her out, and there was no one there to help her,” Meyer later told KCCI, the local CBS affiliate.
The woman’s son-in-law described his reaction upon reviewing the security footage:
“Tears in the eyes,” he said. “It was relief. A good Samaritan stopped and helped my mom. Saved her life. We need more people like him out there.”