Postal carrier rescues woman lying in snow along his route
Published: February 16, 2007
It’s said that neither snow nor sleet will keep a mailman from his route. The elements didn’t stop a Great Falls carrier from offering aid to a stranger on Thursday either.
Lee Hickey has been a carrier for the United States Postal Service in Great Falls for about eight years, spending the last three or four on the same route along 6th and 7th avenues South.
While delivering the mail Thursday, something felt different as he started a familiar loop on 6th Avenue South near 30th Street, Hickey said. He even walked up the steps of one home where he usually accesses the mailbox from ground level.
“Things were just kind of different,” he said.
Before he deposited the mail in the box, he saw a woman lying between the steps and the garage, facedown in the snow.
“God only knows what drew my attention to her,” he said. “She had to be pretty doggone cold.”
Hickey dashed to his vehicle to call 9-1-1, then rushed back to the woman. He took his Postal Service jacket off and wrapped her in it. He rolled up his vest and placed it between her face and the ground.
Great Falls Fire/Rescue arrived quickly and tended to the woman, who had blood near her nose, Hickey said.
“Those guys are great,” he added.
The woman, who Hickey said he didn’t recognize, was transported by ambulance from the scene.
Sgt. Dean Bennett of the Great Falls Police Department confirmed that the department responded to an ambulance assist call for a woman who fell in the snow at 10:40 a.m. Thursday outside 621 31st St. S. As of Thursday night, a report had not been completed and the circumstances that led to the woman lying in the snow were not known.
Hickey said he never got the woman’s name but hopes she is OK.
“I just did what I would want someone to do for me, my family or my friends,” he said.
Following the incident, Hickey returned to the post office, got a new coat and dropped off his vest and jacket, which he had placed in a plastic bag.
He then started his route right where he left off — at the steps near where he found the woman.
“I don’t really feel I did anything extraordinary, just tried to be a good neighbor,” he said.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: