Mail carrier’s compassion inspires a city, sparks a friendship this Thanksgiving
It was just a quick glance in the rearview mirror. But what U.S. Postal Service mail carrier Jaylen Lockhart saw was life-changing.
An older man, walking his dog, seemed off-balance. Instead of continuing on to the next Aurora street, Lockhart kept watching, his senses on alert.
“He didn’t seem to be walking too well. I slowed down and watched, and sure enough, he fell forward, he took a tumble and hit his head really bad,” Lockhart recalled.
Lockhart did a quick U-turn and “got to him as quick as I could, I noticed he had a lot of blood on the ground. I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to give this guy some help.’
“Whatever he’s going through, we’re going to go through it together.”
Lockhart frantically flagged down neighbors looking for napkins or clothing to slow the bleeding. The ad hoc team stanched the flow and Lockhart comforted the injured man, Guy Miller. Next, he tracked down Miller’s wife, Marcia.
Six days later, with a bruised but resilient Miller looking on, Lockhart lit the city’s Christmas tree. On Tuesday, Aurora officials issued a proclamation recognizing his “noble, courageous and inspiring actions.”
And on Thursday, Lockhart and his family will join the Miller clan and their dog, Bentley, for a very special Thanksgiving dinner.
“We have truly bonded,” Marcia Miller said Tuesday. “It’s unbelievable, remarkable.”
Lockhart, 26, grew up in Naperville and graduated from Naperville North High School. He now lives in Aurora with his wife and baby daughter, and is a U.S. Postal Service rural carrier who substitutes when coworkers are absent.
As Lockhart tended to Miller, the dazed senior tried to get up. “Please, sir, stay on the ground,” Lockhart cautioned while checking Miller’s cognitive responses. “I said, ‘Hey, sir, what’s your name? What time of day is it? What’s your address?’”
It was a new neighborhood to Lockhart, but he realized Miller lived a few houses away and rushed to his home.
“Hello, Post Office. Is there an older gentleman who lives here?” a doorbell video shows Lockhart asking. “He fell down the road there.”
“To find our address and to find me so I could be with him during this crisis was outstanding, amazing,” Marcia Miller said. “People don’t do that today.”
The Millers’ daughter, a nurse, tended to her father, who is diabetic. Once things calmed down, a big question remained: Who had come to Guy’s rescue?
Multiple texts, emails, and Facebook inquiries later, “I woke up that Sunday morning and my phone had thousands of text messages (saying) ‘this family’s looking for you just to say thank you,’” Lockhart recalled.
Amid toxic politics and foreign wars, the good-news story was a welcome break that exploded across Chicago TV news, People magazine and “Good Morning America.”
Aurora and U.S. Postal Service leaders lauded Lockhart at the Tuesday meeting, and Mayor Richard Irvin proclaimed his birthday, Aug. 29, as “Jaylen Lockhart Day” in the city.
“Jaylen is a good Samaritan with a big smile, a bigger heart, and the biggest zeal for life whose dedication and determination should be emulated by all,” Irvin said via video.
“He’s coming for Thanksgiving and a Christmas party — it’s not the end, it’s just the beginning to be quite honest,” Marcia Miller said.
For Lockhart, “I wouldn’t think twice about stopping to help anyone in this room, no matter where we are,” he said at the ceremony. “I will cherish this day for the rest of my life.”