Intuition is a powerful tool when our physical senses fail to make sense of a situation. Unfortunately, many of us don’t listen to or act on our gut feelings when it really matters.
In February of 2019, a UPS driver from North Carolina got a strange feeling that something was wrong with one of his long-time customers failed to answer the door while he was attempting a delivery. Thankfully, however, he listened to that gut feeling and his quick thinking ended up saving a life…
A New Career
After finishing his career with the U.S. Navy, veteran Todd Holland returned home to Wilkesboro, North Carolina and settled back into life as a civilian. During this new start, Holland got a job working as a UPS driver delivering packages to the rural area.
25 Years Later
According to Holland, he has spent the past 25 years as a UPS driver and on an average day, he services about 80 homes each day. Most of his time has been spent delivering packages throughout the rural neighborhood of Crumpler, North Carolina.
Regular Customers
During those past 25 years of service, Holland has got to know his customers in the Crumpler area well and even knows many of them by name. According to Holland, he even has one elderly customer that waits outside to greet Holland when he makes a delivery.
A Friendly Customer
So when Holland saw he had a delivery scheduled to the elderly man on a Friday afternoon in February of 2019, he expected to arrive at the home and find the man standing on his back porch as he always did waiting for his delivery with a smile.
An Empty Porch
However, when Holland pulled up outside the elderly man’s house, the friendly resident wasn’t waiting in his usual spot on the porch. Holland thought it was a little bit strange since the man hardly ever missed a delivery, but expected the man to answer the door when he knocked.
No One Home
According to Holland, his knocks at the door went unanswered. While it was unusual, he didn’t think much of it and assumed the old man just wasn’t home at the time. “I knocked on his door and called his name, but I figured he wasn’t home,” Holland told Yahoo Lifestyle.
The Next Delivery
Holland didn’t have another delivery scheduled for the elderly man until the next week. He assumed he would see the man then and get a chance to say hello next time. However, when his next delivery was scheduled a few days later that following Tuesday, the man was missing from his porch yet again.
No Reason To Worry
When Holland, a father of three, first pulled up outside the man’s property, he immediately noticed that no one was there to greet him. At that point, Holland figured that his long-time customer was just out of the house again. He was slightly disappointed but wasn’t concerned.
The Old Package
It wasn’t until Holland got out of the truck, grabbed the man’s package, and turned toward the house that he got a bad feeling. According to Holland, he saw that the package he had left outside the home the previous week was still sitting outside in the exact spot he left it.
A Red Flag
The father of three instantly knew something must be wrong. Not only was it unlike his elderly customer to miss a delivery, but Holland knew that something must have happened for the man to not take in his package. So the UPS driver knocked on the man’s door and called out his name.
A Knock On The Door
“I had a bad feeling, so I knocked on the door and called his name,” Holland explained. When the man, who lives on his own, never answered the door, Holland was sure something was wrong and started knocking even louder on the door hoping to get his customer’s attention.
No Answer
“I started beating on the door, hollering his name, calling the house again,” Holland explained to WXII about the attempted delivery. While no one answered the door, Holland could hear the man’s Rottweiler barking loudly from inside the house.
A Gut Feeling
At that point, Holland felt something was seriously wrong and was worried that something might have happened to the man in his 80s. So when no one answered the door after several minutes, Holland decided to check if the door was unlocked.
A Shocking Discovery
“I heard his Rottweiler barking, so I turned the door handle and entered the house. I saw his feet first,” Holland explained. Holland’s heart immediately sank as he saw the elderly man lying incapacitated on the floor and he feared the worst had happened.
Sign Of Life
But as Holland peered into the house, he noticed the man’s hand move slightly and he was relieved to find that his customer was still alive. “He moved his hand to get my attention and I called 911,” Holland said about the moment he saved his customer’s life.
A Touching Moment
“While we waited for the ambulance, he squeezed my hand and said, ‘I love you.,’” Holland said about the emotional moment. Not long after, an ambulance arrived and paramedics carefully loaded the man into the ambulance. At that point, Holland realized just how close the man had come to dying.
A Close Call
While the man was slurring his words, the paramedics heard the man say that he had fallen and had been laying on the floor for seven days before Holland found him. “His muscles were deteriorating and the EMTs said he otherwise wouldn’t have made it through the night,” Holland explained.
A True Friend
Holland then helped arrange for someone to look after the man’s beloved dog and home while he is in the hospital. “That’s a true friend,” the man told paramedics about Holland. While the man was in bad shape when he was taken to the hospital, he was listed in fair condition since getting treatment for his injuries.
A Hero
Holland has since been hailed a hero for saving his customer. “Everyone is busy, but we have to stay aware when something doesn’t seem right. There is no reason this man should be alive today — he’s the miracle,” Holland said. “I just wish I could have found him Friday. A close friend of mine said it was just not in God’s will to find him Friday, that God has got a plan for everything and it was his plan for me to find him yesterday.”
A Learning Experience
Now, Holland is using his experience to encourage his fellow UPS drivers to follow their instincts while on the job. “I made it a point to tell the guys at work this morning if you deliver to people – and a lot of people that we deliver to, especially in these rural areas, us, the FedEx man and the mailman might be the only people they see during the week. I told them if you realize and get a gut feeling that something is wrong, check it out. It probably is.”
