AUBURN — A mail carrier in Maine is being called a hero after helping save a 90-year-old man she spotted him on the ground while on her route.

The Sun Journal reports that Alyson Thompson, of Auburn, was inspecting her mail last week when she saw the man collapsed on the ground. He could not get up on his own.

Thompson called for help and stayed with him while waiting for rescue crews to arrive.

The man is currently in the hospital.

She says that when a person delivers mail to the same houses every day, they become an unofficial guardian, recognizing “when all is well, and when all is not.” She calls the people on her route “like family.”

She says by helping the man she was just doing her job.