Newspaper carrier summons help for man locked out of Vancouver home, hypothermic

Elisha Pellissier was driving along her regular newspaper delivery route for The Columbian early Thursday morning when she noticed a man sitting outside his home. He was wearing a T-shirt. It was 3:15 a.m.

The elderly man was shaking, trying to get comfortable on some trash cans in his driveway off Northeast 65th Avenue near Vancouver Mall, Pellissier said. Torn garbage bags were also on the driveway.

“He was as white as a bedsheet,” she said.

Pellissier said her car thermometer read 2 degree Celsius (about 36 degrees Fahrenheit). “He was freezing and couldn’t speak. The only thing he managed to say was that he was 85 (years old),” Pellissier said.

She gave the man a jacket and rubbed his back, warming him up until medics arrived at the home. She also picked up the spilled trash, she said.

Medics loaded the man onto a stretcher, placed him in the back of an ambulance and drove off to the hospital.

The first responder called Pellissier later that day and told her she likely saved the man’s life. The responder, according to Pellissier, said that the man is believed to have fallen while he was taking out the trash earlier in the night. The garage door closed behind him, locking him outside.

The man was suffering from hypothermia when Pellissier found him on the property, which Pellissier described as a ranch-style home with a decent-sized yard.

Pellissier said she has seen a few odd things over the years while delivering newspapers for The Columbian. She remembered witnessing people breaking into cars early in the morning while she was assigned to a route in downtown Vancouver. She said she reported those break-ins to police.

“This is a whole new experience for me,” she said. “I keep thinking about him, wondering if he’s OK.”

She also wonders why he was outside alone for so long and no one stopped to help.

Reached by phone, the daughter of the man requested to remain anonymous. She said her father is doing OK but remained at the hospital Thursday night.

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