Parker postal carrier receives 'Hero Award'
PARKER — Brenda Lumley was in the right place at the right time.
“If I hadn't have been there when he was, he might have laid there for awhile,” said Lumley of Chicora.
Lumley received the Postmaster General Hero Award, which is given to United States Postal Service employees who go above and beyond the call of duty to protect human life and property, after she assisted a man whose vehicle crashed into a tree June 20 along her rural route.
While Lumley may take it all in stride, Arthur Russo sees it a bit differently.
“That lady is my angel,” Russo said of the rural postal carrier who saved his life. “I was in a bad wreck and was laying on the side of the road. I flagged her down, and she picked me up and took me home.”
Russo added how Lumley had also alerted first responders who arrived at his doorstep just minutes after the two of them.
On his way home from a doctor's appointment, Russo was driving along desolate Daubenspeck Road near his home when a medical emergency caused him to crash his SUV into a tree while traveling about 50 mph. He was able to stumble out of his vehicle and collapsed on the road.
Russo remembers seeing Lumley up the road and said he started trying to flag her down.
Meanwhile, Lumley noticed Russo during her deliveries and called 911. She was able to get Russo into her SUV and off the road.
“I was so thankful he was conscious when I got there,” she said. “From the look of the car, I didn't know what I was going to find.”
She drove him 200 yards to his house and waited with him for 10 minutes until an ambulance and state police arrived.
“I was a nervous wreck,” said Russo's girlfriend, Darl Hooks. “I knew the car could be replaced, but he couldn't be. I usually go to the doctor with him, but I didn't that day.”
Little to no traffic travels on the northern Butler County rural route for hours at a time, which Lumley said was her main concern. Russo's son, Shawn, drove in from Kentucky, made it a point to personally thank Lumley and recommended she be recognized for her action.
Shawn Russo joked Friday during a ceremony honoring Lumley at the Parker Post Office that his dad doesn't listen.
Swiping past pictures of his dad's destroyed SUV, he points to a sign on the tree that says “No Trespassing.”
“I'm forever thankful to Miss Lumley,” Shawn Russo said. “He lives on a low traffic road. He could have laid there for hours. She took an interest in someone else in need.”
Arthur Russo was hospitalized for several weeks at Allegheny General Hospital. He suffered two fractured vertebrae and five fractured ribs. He is home recovering from a spinal fusion and surgery. In all, he had 62 staples, two rods and eight screws inserted into his body.Throughout her postal career, Lumley has not experienced an event more traumatic.“That car was smashed clear back to the windshield,” she said. “I'm thankful he wasn't unconscious or worse.”Along routes that span four hours on backroads, carriers never know what they will find, she said.Lumley considered the award a reflection of the job of everyday postal carriers.“This is probably the best days of my career, when I get to do these events,” said Troy Seanor, USPS district manager who came to Parker early Friday to present her award. “This is about everything. Engaging with the community, being the eyes and ears of a community.”Seanor said postal carriers often help people in need, report crimes, do welfare checks and more in their communities.The USPS considers it important to recognize carriers like Lumley for going above and beyond.Each recipient receives a commendation letter from Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan. Honorees are featured on a heroes' wall at USPS headquarters in Washington, D.C.The tiny Parker post office with three full-time carriers located along the Allegheny River in the smallest city in the U.S. has a big hero.Lumley began her postal carrier career in Mars when she was hired in 1993. Next, she was transferred to Cranberry Township in 1995 where she went full-time.After her time in Cranberry Township, she transferred to Parker where she has remained for 22 years.Embracing Russo at the ceremony, Lumley called him “tough as nails,” and talked of seeing him cutting firewood in his front yard a few days earlier.“Anyone of us would have done the same thing in the situation I was put in,” she said. “I feel we do our best when we're out there.”
