Wilmot, WI, Postmaster Loretta Jaffe was off duty one day in January when she and her husband, Brian, came upon a crisis in nearby Kenosha.
The couple was in their vehicle when they spotted a man, Bill Karls, lying on the ground outside his residence with a snowblower — still running — on top of him.
With several neighbors assembling to render aid, the Jaffes rushed to join them.
“Loretta said, ‘We’ve got to stop,’” Brian later told the Kenosha News.
Karls was in cardiac arrest and a neighbor was struggling to perform CPR on him while 911 was called.
The Jaffes lifted the snowblower off Karls, the 911 caller handed Brian the phone, and he relayed instructions to Loretta, who took over CPR efforts until paramedics arrived.
The couple visited Karls after he was released from a hospital.
“Thank God you guys were there at the time,” he told them. “It’s a spiritual thing for me.”
“It was just the right thing to do, even if we weren’t sure how to do it at the time,” Loretta said.
Brian added: “Everyone should stop to help their neighbors, even if they don’t know them.”