Pantagraph carrier helps elderly man found lying outside

March 09-- Mar. 9--BLOOMINGTON -- The most shocking thing a newspaper carrier expects to see might be a skunk, an opossum or maybe an unfriendly dog, but early Friday morning Harvey Dorsey's route was interrupted by a 911 call.

Between 3 and 4 a.m. Dorsey was on David Drive in Bloomington delivering The Pantagraph when he noticed a screen door standing open. He kept driving to drop off a newspaper down the street and came back to find a 93-year-old man lying in the snow.

"There was blood all over his hands and his pants so I ran back to the car to get my phone and call 911," Dorsey said.

Dorsey said it looked like the man tried to step outside to check his mailbox and fell. A walker was laying on its side and the man was lying halfway out the door.

The man said he had been there for about four hours and he was cold. Dorsey covered him with his jacket, held his head and talked to him while they waited for the paramedics to arrive.

"I told him, 'Be still, stay still. Help is on the way.'"

About 10 to 15 minutes later, paramedics were tending to the man.

Once they had him in the ambulance and were headed to the hospital, Dorsey drove to the man's daughter's house, another daily stop on his route, and told her what happened.

Dorsey missed his delivery deadline by 15 minutes, but he said he was glad he stopped to investigate because if it had been several more hours before the man was found, it might have been too late.

"I think I actually did save his life," he said. "Usually I don't deliver that early to that residence, but for some reason I turned down that street.

"I guess it was fate."

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Contact Kelsey Watznauer at (309) 820-3254. Follow her on Twitter: @kwatznauer.

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