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Elderly woman prints letter in town newspaper thanking delivery driver for saving her life

"I don't know if he will see this..."

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A delivery driver in England helped save a woman's life

Kindness is infectious. Once it chooses a host, it can spread easily to others, creating a world where the same germ of consideration one could have for another might come back tenfold.

Such was the case in England with Leandro Pinto Dantas, a 36-year-old Asda delivery driver working in Poole, Dorset. One evening, he was making a grocery delivery to a woman and became concerned when she didn't answer her door. His instinct told him something was off, and sure enough - it was.

In Sophie Cridland's piece for BBC.com, she shares his explanation: "The light was on, and the TV was on. I knocked on the door but didn't get an answer, so I called the contact phone number we had for the delivery but got no reply." He then looked through the window, only to see that the woman was on the floor, seemingly unconscious. He called emergency services (999 in the United Kingdom), and luckily, they were able to come in time.

The woman, reportedly in her 60s, was diabetic, and her blood sugar had dropped. The paramedics treated her with a glucose injection.

Some might say concern for others is just the right thing to do — and that perhaps anyone in their right mind would have done the same. But Leandro went an extra mile by not only putting the customer's groceries away once the paramedics arrived, but also coming back a few days later with a check-in and some flowers.

In turn, the woman penned a letter to Leandro for the Bournemouth Echo (a local newspaper), letting him know how much it meant to her.

Printed in bold was: "Thanks for all your help." The letter continued: "I don't know if he will see this, but just in case he does, I wonder if you can print my letter to say thank you to the Asda delivery chap who found me unconscious on the floor and organised a neighbour to get my back gate open so he could come in and phone for an ambulance. That is certainly going above and beyond what I would expect from supermarket delivery drivers to do. I am fine now, but I think that will be the last time I do my insulin injection in that part of me again." It's signed Mrs. A. Thorne, Coles Avenue, Poole.

Delivery driver, Asda, Poole, heroA woman pens a note to the Bournemouth Echo to thank delivery driverBBC.Com, Bournemouth Echo Newspaper

She also relayed that the incident might have saved her from another silent issue. "I came round with a paramedic giving me glucose to get my blood sugars up. My blood pressure wasn't quite right either, so I was taken to hospital to be checked over and was allowed home the next day."

Leandro's employers took note too. They nominated him for the Asda Service Superstar Award. From their website: "We’re extremely proud of our incredible colleagues who go the extra mile every day to make a difference to our customers, communities and each other. Our Proud to be Asda Awards are about recognising, celebrating and most importantly saying thank you to these extra special colleagues."

Call it fate, call it circumstance. Either way, one simple act of doing the right thing led to more kindness, which led to the workplace taking note ---which will hopefully only continue paving the path for better things.

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Gen Z labor nurse honors every baby she's helped deliver—one bead at a time

Imagine is every hospital had a "baby bead jar."

Photo credit: Canva

A nurse holding a baby (left); Jars of beads (right)

Gen Zers are often made fun of for baring their hearts online and not having the same emotional compartmentalization skills as their predecessors, but as these folks enter the workplace, especially in the healthcare field, those qualities might be just what’s desperately needed.

Case and point: Jayuanna Thomas, a 25-year-old labor nurse who commemorates every birth she’s ever participated in with especially colored beads. So far, she has 211 beads in her baby bead jar.

She currently has 117 beads blue for boys, and 90 pink for girls. The there are eight yellow for the sweet babies who were “born sleeping” and are “just as important as blues and pinks." Next she has one purple, for the one time (so far) that she delivered a baby entirely alone, simply because things happened too fast. Finally, she has two green, for the “special” deliveries that touched Nurse Jay’s heart in a unique way that she’d never forget.

@jayuanna.lenee Here’s my baby jar! So thankful to be apart of so many special deliveries🥹🩵🩷💛💚 #babyjay #babybeadjar #laboranddelivery #laboranddeliverynurse #landdnurse ♬ Walking Around - Instrumental Version - Eldar Kedem

It's such a simple idea, and yet it really hit a powerful nerve among viewers, especially those with their own “yellow bead babies.”

“My daughter is someone’s yellow bead but she is forever my first pink bead.”

“As the mom of a baby born sleeping, 41 years ago, 3 weeks overdue, it was the nurse I remember all of these years. She was a bright light in a dark time.”

“My son was stillborn in 2018. The compassionate nurses really got me through it. Thank you for honoring the other stillborns. It means a lot.”

I wonder if my Angel baby is a bead in someone's jar.”

In an interview withNewsweek, Thomas shared that being an obstetrician-gynecologist (OBGYN) and delivering babies has been her dream since she was five years old.

"I never wanted to be anything else," she said. "One of my favorite parts of my job outside of being able to see life being brought into the world is sitting in my patients' rooms for HOURS getting to know them, their likes, dislikes, music preferences, what books they're reading etc."

Thomas’ deep emotional connection to her work is made all the more evident by her baby bead jar, which is not only heartwarming, but pretty revolutionary when you think about it. Our current healthcare system, among its many flaws, often focuses more on clinical care than compassionate care. Imagine if every hospital room had a similar baby bead jar, commemorating every birth for the sacred event that it is, regardless of the outcome?

labor nurse, nurse baby bead jar, baby bead jar, giving birth, nurses, healthcare, delivering babiesA pair of hands holding another pair of hands. Photo credit: Canva

Luckily, Thomas, and many nurses just like her, find their own unique ways of going against the system to humanly care in truly wonderful ways. Seems like Gen Z has a thing or two to teach us after all.

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Joy

Robin Williams saw a struggling comedian bomb on stage. He changed her life with one sentence.

They had never met but Williams knew exactly what to say.

ha.wikipedia.org

Robin Williams performs on stage.

Robin Williams once beautifully said, "I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy. Because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anybody else to feel like that."

One night at a comedy club in Los Angeles, a new, nervous stand-up comic was called to the stage by the emcee. In one hand, she casually had a beer that she propped up on the piano. In the other, was her notebook full of scribbled, half-written joke premises and a few wine stains. She did her opening joke and the response was so quiet, she could hear the ice machine crackling in the kitchen. Joke two — a slight spattering of nervous laughter. Joke three got a heartier laugh, but then it went back to deafening quiet by joke four.

She mercifully got through her final joke, and said "That's my time" long before the red light in the back of the club even went on. She scurried off stage with her beer, like that rat in New York carrying a piece of pizza. Panicked, embarrassed, and frankly — a little hungry.

It was just one of those nights. The last time she'd done this act — same words nearly exactly — she'd received an applause break. This time, she was left questioning every one of her life decisions. Why had she come to Los Angeles? How was the next month's rent supposed to get paid? Why had she cut her hair in the "Rachel-styled" haircut?

As she was about to enter the hallway that led into the bar area, she could feel actual tears forming behind her eyes, like little faucets that were slowly turning on. "Don't cry at the comedy club," she told herself. Rather, "Don't cry at the comedy club AGAIN." But as the tears came anyway, she looked up and lo and behold, there was Robin Williams. She stuttered, "You. Are. One of my favorites. Ever." He looked at her, his blue eyes warmly crinkling and said, "You were amazing."

It hadn't been true. But the fact that he would go out of his way to make this total stranger's awful night into one of her best at that time, was just the kind of person Robin was.

I know this because that woman was me.

I wanted to tell him about the Mork and Mindy poster on my wall as a kid, and how I had cut out Mindy's face and put in my third-grade class photo. I wanted to tell him how much I loved his care for animals and for the unhoused and for the less fortunate. Or that because of him, I had a weird fetish for suspenders. (The last one wasn't quite true, but I still wanted to say it.)

But instead I merely laughed and said "Oh, thank you. But I can do better." He gave me a gentle look like, "We're all in this together," and even though I knew I'd never have a career like his, it dawned on me that it didn't matter. That being kind to others actually DID matter and that he was a lighthouse in a really stormy, pitch-black ocean.

I stuck it out and just a few years later, got to perform in the super cool and coveted "New Faces" show at the Just for Laughs Montreal Comedy Fest. Didn't kill there either, but I was able to step back and look down from an aerial view. How we uplift others, whether through laughter or kindness, is really the only control we have in this world.

Years later, after Robin passed away, I had heart surgery and was feeling down. I had read that cardiac issues could leave a person biochemically depressed and the first person I thought of was him. I messaged our mutual friend from San Francisco and asked if he remembered Robin speaking to him about heart surgery and depression. He only affirmed that yes, it was a very real side effect and that I should take it seriously.

I have always thought of the neurotransmitter Serotonin like it was a flowery perfume. Notes of honey, lavender, rose. When someone has a good amount of it floating through their synapses, it leaves trace of itself wherever it goes, as if the tunnels it burrows under pumps it out through a steam grate. But from what I've heard, Robin struggled with that too. And yet he still found a way to leave a lovely and inviting scent behind him, because he wanted to make sure OTHERS were okay.

heart, robin williams, comediansA heart shaped neon sign in the dark Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash

I guess, even in his death, I was looking to Robin for answers. But one puzzle remains solved: making others happy is the kindest thing we can do, even when our own valves --- whether heart or perfume pumps --- fail to work.

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Joy

In 1997, Fred Rogers had A-listers in tears while receiving his lifetime achievement Emmy

"I never considered myself a TV star. I always thought I was a neighbor who just came in for a visit."

via The Emmy Awards/YouTube

Fred Rogers accepts his Lifetime Achievement Award.

Fred Rogers, known by children of all ages as Mister Rogers, was a gentle, humble man who taught the values of kindness, empathy, creativity, patience, self-worth, and curiosity on television for over 33 years. In 1997, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards. That night, he demonstrated his trademark humility, also showing that gentle spirits can exude a sense of authority that even the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world respect without question.

The award was presented to Rogers by actor Tim Robbins, three years after the release of The Shawshank Redemption. In his introduction, he referred to Rogers as “the best neighbor any of us has ever had.” He also praised him for “giving generation upon generation of children confidence in themselves. For being their friend. For telling them again and again and again that they are special and that they have worth.”

When Rogers took the stage, he didn’t thank his agent or pat himself on the back for all the hard work he had done. No, he asked the successful people in the room to reflect on the individuals who had helped them achieve their success.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

“So many people have helped me to come here to this night. Some of you are here, some are far away, and some are even in Heaven,” he told the audience. “All of us have special ones who loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, 10 seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are, those who cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life? Ten seconds, I’ll watch the time. Whomever you’ve been thinking about, how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they have made.”

Without any reservations, the audience, composed of actors, producers, soap opera stars, and talk show hosts, did precisely what Mr. Rogers asked of them, and for 10 seconds, on national TV before an audience of millions, they quietly reflected.

george w. bush, fred rogers, medal of freedom, mister rogers, presidents, bush 2, neighborsPresident George W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award to Fred Rogers July 9, 2002via The White House/Wikimedia Commons

He also added that those who helped and encouraged the people in the room to achieve their current status are the ones we should be celebrating. “Whomever you've been thinking about, how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they've made. You know they're the kind of people television does well to offer our world,” Rogers said.

Subtly, Rogers' remarks suggest that he believes television programming has a responsibility to help and encourage people, implying that television doesn’t always live up to these standards. He didn’t call anyone out. He wasn’t preachy. He just highlighted those who make a positive contribution to the world. Few people in entertainment could make that statement to those people but Mister Rogers.

king friday, mister rogers, fred rogers, pbs, children's tv, mister rogers neighborhoodKing Friday XIII and Fred Rogers. via HuffPo/Wikimedia Commons

Rogers concluded his speech with thanks to those who had helped him throughout his career. "Special thanks to my family and friends, and to my co-workers in public broadcasting, Family Communications, and this Academy for encouraging me, allowing me all these years to be your neighbor," he finished, adding, "May God be with you. Thank you.”

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