Grocery store driver sensed 'something was wrong,' what he did next earned him 'hero' status
Talk about being in the right place at the right time — and then doing the right thing.
A "hero" grocery store delivery driver wound up saving a woman's life when he realized something was wrong and trusted his instincts.
Leandro Pinta Dantas, 36, didn't get an answer when he arrived at a customer's house with a food delivery she had ordered from the Asda grocery store, news agency SWNS reported.
Sensing that "something was wrong" when no one answered, he didn't just drive away — he took a few extra steps, the same source said.
"I knocked on the door, but I didn't get an answer, so I called the contact phone number," he said.
When he didn't get an answer to that, he said he was going to leave but felt that "something didn't feel right."
So, walking up to one of the windows of the house, he pushed some branches out of the way and spotted a woman lying on the floor of the home.
The delivery driver saw lights and a TV on.
The Dorset-based worker in England called emergency services and got a neighbor to help him.
Paramedics were soon on the scene treating the woman, who suffered from diabetes.
She was then taken to the hospital for further treatment. Her name was not immediately released.
Dantas said it was about 9 p.m. when he arrived at the customer's home.
He saw lights and a TV on.
He told SWNS that after the customer didn't answer the door or the phone, "I believe God made me go back to the window and I pushed some branches away so I could see better."
That's when he "saw the lady face down," he said.
He immediately called for an ambulance.
"I'm just happy that I was there and saved her," he said.
While emergency workers tended to the woman in her 60s, the driver put all of her groceries away in the house.
A few days later, he called to find out how she was doing.
The woman was "extremely grateful" for the man's kindness, she said.
She also said, "I can't thank him enough for what he did," as SWNS reported.
She said that "he even came around later with flowers for me."
After she was taken to the hospital and checked, she said, she was able to return home the next day.
The man has been nominated for a service award at his store, the same source reported.
His manager told SWNS, "We are so very proud of the way he handled the delivery … He truly is a hero and went totally above and beyond, which probably saved the customer's life."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
31 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Hundreds of laid-off CDC employees are being reinstated
Whole CDC programs were essentially shut down, including some focused on smoking, lead poisoning, gun violence, asthma and air quality, and workplace safety and health. The entire office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests was shuttered. Infectious disease programs took a hit, too, including programs that fight outbreaks in other countries, labs focused on HIV and hepatitis in the U.S., and staff trying to eliminate tuberculosis. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up An estimated 200 of the reinstated workers are based in the CDC's National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, HHS officials confirmed. Staffers at a CDC lab that does testing for sexually transmitted diseases are being brought back, said one CDC employee who wasn't authorized to discuss what happened and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Advertisement Also reinstated are an estimated 150 employees at the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, including people staffing a lab that works on lead poisoning, according to the union and employees. Layoffs at federal agencies were challenged in lawsuits, with judges in some cases ordering federal agencies to halt terminations of employees. Advertisement Officials at HHS have never detailed how they made the layoff decisions in the first place. And they did not answer questions about why the notices went out, or how decisions were made about who to bring back. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency was streamlining operations and that 'the nation's critical public health functions remain intact and effective.' 'The Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential services — whether it's supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases,' he said. The reinstatements don't undo the damage being done by Kennedy and the Trump administration to federal public health, said members of Fired But Fighting, a group of affected CDC workers who have helped organize rallies in Atlanta. The most recent was in the rain on Tuesday, at which some attendees called for Kennedy to resign. 'Bringing a few hundred people back to work out of thousands fired is a start, but there are still countless programs at CDC that have been cut, which will lead to increased disease and death,' one of the group's founding members, Abby Tighe, said in a statement. This is not the first time that employees at the Atlanta-based agency were told they were being terminated only to then be told to come back. After an earlier round of termination notices went out in February, about 180 CDC employees in March were told to come back.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Virus spreading mite blamed for 60% loss of bee colonies needed to pollinate food crops
A catastrophic loss of bee colonies over the winter has been blamed on a mite that injects a virus into the bees and spreads the deadly pathogen throughout their colonies. Between 60% to 70% of the bees used to pollinate crops, including almonds in California, apples in New York and blueberries and watermelons in Central Florida have been lost, according to Robbie Bell, a beekeeper who runs an apiary at the Honey Bell Bee Co. in Fort Meade. 'We kind of figured it was a virus,' he said of a recent USDA confirmation of the cause. 'This year was a bad year' compared to the usual 30% to 40% casualty rate among the pollinators. The U.S. Agricultural Department issued a news release on June 3 saying its research has linked 'early 2025 honeybee losses to high viral loads and mite resistance.' 'The findings point to alarmingly high levels of viral infections — vectored by Varroa destructor (Varroa) mites with resistant genes to a common treatment — as key drivers of colony collapse,' the USDA said. It turns out the trips across the United States for bees to pollenate the crops can be very hazardous for bees. They encounter agricultural fungicides, pesticides and often drink water from farm ponds laden with runoff from the application of such chemicals. 'That's another layer to the puzzle,' said Bell of several potential factors weakening the pollinators. The USDA echoed such factors in its release. Factors such as pesticide exposure, poor nutrition and environmental conditions may have exacerbated the losses, the USDA said. Bell estimates that about 80% of agricultural crops in the United States are pollenated by bees, as butterflies, bumblebees and other pollinator insects that once occurred naturally have declined in population in the past 10 to 20 years. Regarding almonds, Bell said 100% of the crop is pollinated by bees. The demand for bees to pollinate has Bell's bees booked up years in advance. But smaller beekeepers may have fared much better, according to Jan Betters at Pat's Apiaries, which has some hives in the Wahneta and other areas of Polk County. The Auburndale-based operation takes about 100 hives to an Alturas blueberry farm every year and sells honey locally at farmers markets. 'We are very careful to take out bees to farms that only spray when bees are in the hives,' she said. The practice keeps their bees away from potential environmental hazards but in large scale agricultural setting in miles long groves, such practices are more difficult to coordinate. Their die off rate is about 10% to 20% per year, a loss much less than the rates at commercial beekeepers. According to the USDA, after reports from beekeepers about the die off, a study analyzed samples from six major commercial beekeeping operations affected by the losses. The samples provided 'the most detailed evidence to date of the biological factors behind the widespread die-offs.' 'Collectively, these operations managed nearly 184,000 colonies — roughly 7% of all U.S. hives — and reported losses averaging over 60%, just as bees were being staged for California's almond pollination season," the USDA said. 'The beekeeping and bee health community appreciates the work of the USDA-ARS bee research laboratories. They quickly took samples of lost colonies and now that they've released the analysis, beekeepers can better understand what happened and take action,' said Matt Mulica, senior project director at Keystone Policy Center, which facilitates the Honey Bee Health Coalition. 'We understand more analysis is occurring and we look forward to learning more about the other potential causes of these significant colony losses,' he said in the release. Researchers found high levels of Deformed Wing Virus (DWV-A and DWV-B) and Acute Bee Paralysis Virus in both pooled colony samples and individual bees showing shaking and other signs of morbidity, the USDA said. Experimental inoculation further confirmed these viruses as the likely cause of mortality in collapsing colonies. Crucially, all Varroa mites collected from affected colonies tested positive for a genetic marker linked to resistance to amitraz, the most commonly used miticide in commercial beekeeping, the USDA said. This finding underscores the need for new tools and pest management strategies. 'This is a critical moment for honey bee health,' said Patty Sundberg, president of the American Beekeeping Federation. 'We can't continue relying on a single line of defense against Varroa. These mites are evolving quickly, and our management tools must evolve just as fast. We also need to find treatments for these viruses and we await the release of how pesticide exposure and poor nutrition amplify the impacts from these viruses.' Steven Coy, president of the American Honey Producers Association, added, 'The findings released today are a crucial first step in providing beekeepers actionable information. It highlights the necessity for additional miticides and methods of controlling varroa and the associated viruses. Agricultural Center: Polk County OKs initial contracts for long-sought facility south of Bartow We urge the USDA to provide the results of the impacts of nutritional, chemical and environmental stress as soon as possible. Beekeepers need a complete picture of what happened in order to make sound decisions regarding the health of our colonies.' In 2021, the Honey Bee Health Coalition published "Guide to Varroa Mite Controls for Commercial Beekeeping Operations," which laid out a vision that addresses the risks of amitraz resistance created by off-label use. The continuous use of off-label amitraz, with increasing dosages (as it becomes less effective), is likely to cause amitraz to lose its effectiveness, just as other products like coumaphos and tau-fluvalinate have become largely ineffective for controlling Varroa mites. The Honey Bee Health Coalition continues to support innovation in honey bee health, including research, tool development and education aimed at helping beekeepers and farmers manage evolving threats. The coalition will release an updated version of its "Tools for Varroa Management" guide later this year. The guide is a key resource for beekeepers, providing science-based strategies for monitoring and controlling Varroa populations. According to Noah Wilson-Rich, founder and chief scientific officer at the Urban Bee Lab, for the first time, commercial beehive losses have surpassed those of hobbyist and backyard beekeepers.' The Boston-based lab found that two of every three beehives used for crop pollination have been lost. 'Last year marked the first time the U.S. surpassed the 50% threshold of beehive deaths, and this year is the first in which commercial beehive losses outpaced residential ones. In 2014, the U.S. government set a loss threshold of 15%. 'We have well surpassed that, with losses now exceeding 60%, and a jump of around 10% in just the last year alone,' Wilson-Rich said. In response, beekeepers have been rapidly replacing dead beehives by splitting one beehive into two or more, he said. Yet, these losses only take into account honeybees and ignore the 4,000 other species of native bees in North America, with populations going unmonitored without intervention. His lab confirmed the mite responsible for the commercial bee die offs. Meanwhile, he said, 'My research team and collaborators around the world focus on AI sensors and blockchain technology to cure bees of diseases caused by mites, as well as to recover from pesticide exposure, as a next-generation approach to improving bee health.' This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Mite blamed for 60% loss of bee colonies that pollinate food crops
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
How long does a cold last? And how long are you contagious?
Many people think of December and January as the two months of the year you're likely to catch the common cold, but 'cold season' actually stretches from late August through April. That means only about three months of the year, typically May through July, fall outside it. But even during these 'off' months, nearly one in 10 people still catch a cold, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In other words, in any given month, tens of millions of people are walking around with telltale cold symptoms like a stuffy nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing, sore throat and sometimes a cough or low-grade fever. Here's what causes colds to spread so easily, how long they are usually contagious and how they're most commonly treated. What are the main causes of a cold? The common cold is most often caused by a viral infection. Rhinoviruses are the leading culprit, but other viruses such as adenoviruses, certain coronaviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and parainfluenza viruses can also trigger cold symptoms by infecting the upper respiratory tract. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. These and more than 200 other viruses spread through saliva or mucus particles expelled from a sick person. 'To catch a cold, you must introduce a cold virus from someone else into your airway,' says Dr. David Hill, a North Carolina-based pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. This typically happens when infected respiratory droplets are released into the air when a sick person talks, sings, sneezes or coughs. In addition to being inhaled directly, viruses can also land on surfaces and spread when someone touches a contaminated surface and then brushes their nose, eyes or mouth. 'Being in shared spaces often increases the likelihood of transmission,' says Dr. Alison Mitzner, a New York City-based board-certified pediatrician and author of "Calm and Confident Parenting." Other risk factors include a weakened immune system, preexisting health conditions, exposure to cigarette smoke, colder months with lower humidity (which dry out nasal passages) and aging. "Sleep deprivation and fatigue can also make people more susceptible to catching a cold," adds Hill. How long are colds contagious? One of the reasons colds spread so frequently is that they are contagious even before symptoms begin, often one or two days beforehand. After that, "you're usually contagious for as long as you have symptoms, which typically last seven to ten days," says Mitzner. While germs can spread anytime throughout this period, the most viral shedding tends to happen around days four to six. "Know that you can remain contagious for up to two weeks though," she adds. Hill says it's also important to note that "different cold viruses have different levels of contagion." RSV, for example, "is extraordinarily easy to transmit at it can survive on surfaces for hours," he explains. Yes, pneumonia can be contagious. But here's why it depends on the form. How are colds treated? While symptoms can almost always be managed, 'there are no treatments that shorten the duration of a cold,' says Hill. Instead, "every cold just needs to run its course," says Mitzner. To relieve symptoms in the meantime, Hill recommends saltwater nasal rinses for congestion or using nasal decongestants like oxymetazoline if symptoms are especially bad. But he cautions against using them for more than two to three days due to the risk of rebound congestion which, he says, "may be worse than the cold itself." Medications such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen can also reduce fever and alleviate sore throat or headaches but should not be given to very young children without medical advice. For younger kids, Hill recommends honey as a natural cough and sore throat remedy, though he emphasizes that infants and kids under 1 year should never be given honey due to the risk of botulism. 'When you catch a cold, it's important to let your body heal,' says Mitzner. That means rest, hydration and the use of 'a cool-mist humidifier at night to breathe easier.'
