It’s amazing how survival instincts naturally kick in. It’s the most powerful human drive to make it out alive, whatever the circumstances are. Dangerous situations, where you’re stuck without any way out and against your will, with no time, force you to have to come up with something on the spot. You have to be able to navigate around panic and despair to search for a solution, by any means, and find the path of least resistance if it means saving your life.
And that’s exactly what one woman did in Robertsville, Missouri, USA. She saw a little glimmer of hope in what could have ended horribly, and with the help of a shrewd UPS delivery man, she made it out safely.
It was just another house on Kenneth Belew’s delivery route. Having done it many times over, he’s become pretty familiar with his surroundings. However, it was at this particular pick up that things seemed to be a little off. Upon arriving at the house on his route, the door opened and he received a package from a somewhat distressed looking woman. He noticed her slightly strange behavior and the message “Call 911” scribbled on one of the packages facing him. Having been trained to respond to requests for assistance, he suddenly felt strange about the situation and decided to act on it.
It’s not clear how she was able to write on the box, but it was good enough to get her message across to the driver. Kenneth acted fast and called the authorities who sent a SWAT team to the house immediately. They were able to diffuse the situation and make an arrest without any problems.
It turns out the woman was being held captive by her husband. The man was charged with domestic and s****l assault, felonious restraint and endangering the welfare of a child. The wife was locked up in her own home without a phone, while their three-year-old child was also locked in a bedroom without food or water for 15 hours. When the delivery man showed up, she was instructed and forced to open the door by her husband with a gun to her back. But, she was able to pass on her SOS message.
“She was not given her phone, so she had no way to contact the sheriff’s office for help,” says Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, Sgt. TJ Wild. “We are grateful this UPS driver, with more than a decade of service, followed protocol when he saw a customer in distress and contacted authorities after he saw her message to contact 911.”
Click below to see more about how this heroic story unfolded.
