Perk Of Getting The Newspaper Delivered? It Can Save Your Life

Ben Morris wasn't supposed to be out delivering newspapers that morning. But because he was, a 77-year-old grandmother is still alive.

It was 17 degrees in Casper, Wyo., when Morris, 55, set out to deliver the 20,000-circulation Star-Tribune. On most overnights, Morris, the district circulation manager of the news organization, is in the office overseeing the delivery operation. But last Friday, a contractor quit, and he filled in on the route.

On a whim, Morris decided to reverse the route direction. There was no rhyme or reason to do so, he just felt like he wanted to switch things up.

So on a normal morning, Edith Brekken's home would have been his 73rd stop. Instead, she was the third.

When Morris pulled up to her home around 4:15 a.m., he saw through the darkness her lifeless body face down on her icy front porch. She was barefoot and in pajamas. Much of her skin was exposed to the freezing air.

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He knelt beside her, pleading, "Ma'am, please, ma'am. What can I do?" He couldn't find her pulse, but he leaned in close to her mouth and saw fog on his glasses, an indication that she was breathing. Her front door was ajar and her small dog began barking frantically. As he called 911, he ran inside and stripped her bed of blankets and a pillow. She stirred. Barely coherent, she told him she couldn't get inside her house. He soothed her, and told her an ambulance was on it way.

"I don't rattle easily, but I did not know whether she was conscious or not, dead or alive," said Morris, who spent 17 years as an operating room technician.

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Brekken had been outside in the freezing cold for two hours before Morris found her. The doctors said if Brekken had lain there 30 minutes more she would have died of hypothermia. If Morris had gone the normal route, it would have been an hour before he reached her.

"Somebody was looking over her," her daughter, Erin Raabe said. "He was a good pick for a guardian angel, they picked the right guy."

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Raabe's father passed away three years ago, and after 51 years of marriage her mother lives alone. Brekken, who may lose several toes to frostbite, hasn't been coherent enough to describe exactly what happened, but her daughter believes she fell inside and tried to get to the outside front steps for leverage to get up.

Morris visited her in the hospital on Monday. He doesn't know why he chose to go the other way on the route. Divine intervention? Incredible fortune? He can't say.

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"That could have been my mother who lives in rural Iowa and subscribes to a daily newspaper. Or anyone's mother," he said. "Thank goodness she was a subscriber."

Brekken has subscribed to the Casper Star-Tribune her whole adult life. She reads it front to back every morning, Raabe said.

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Still recovering, Brekken can't quite articulate what happened. But every morning in the hospital she has asked for her newspaper.

© 2016 The Washington Post