Raheem Cooper is a UPS driver who was just running his normal route through Valdosta, Georgia, when he noticed something disturbing. An elderly woman had collapsed on her driveway. She was unresponsive in the hot sun. Thanks to his keen observation, the delivery trucker was able to call emergency services and get help. But that’s just the beginning of Cooper and Marie Coble’s story.

Instead of leaving, the UPS driver insisted on staying by her side. Cooper called the suffering woman “grandmother.” He said, “I told her at that point she was grandmother so we are pretty much family.”

After Coble went to the hospital, Cooper was relieved to hear her outlook was good. Then things went downhill. Cooper remembered, “She was recovering pretty well at first, but it changed drastically and she was rushed to have an emergency brain surgery.” After the fall she suffered from a brain bleed (subdural hematoma).

After emergency surgery, “grandmother” Coble gets a visit from her favorite UPS driver

While Marie Coble was recovering from the brain surgery, she struggled to respond to stimuli. Marie’s daughter said, “Five days after the surgery, she hadn’t talked at all.”  Then Cooper visited, “And when he came into the room, she brightened up and actually pushed herself up and gave him a hug. That’s the first time since this whole thing has happened.”

Cooper continued to visit Marie weekly, even brining twinkies because he’d learned they were her favorite treat. Special deliveries from a kindhearted UPS driver. During his visits, he saw how her family was stretched thin by the emergency. He decided, “To get some help with any medical bills, rehab, and to help her family with travel expenses because a lot of her family stay in a different state and still make a way to come here to check on her often.”

On his UPS delivery driver salary, Cooper couldn’t exactly foot the entire bill himself. So, he set up a GoFundMe page on Coble’s behalf. Then he tossed in $100 out of his own pocket. With Cooper’s heartfelt words, the GoFundMe raised over $11k.

Marie’s daughter, Kayla, said “He was truly an angel to our family to have found her because if he wouldn’t have, she would have died that day.”