Delivery man helps save Highlands County woman stuck in window for 5 hours

AVON PARK, Fla. - A Highlands County woman says she owes her life to her neighborhood's newspaper delivery man. 

Jose Sanchez, a newspaper delivery man, was on his normal paper route early Tuesday morning when he heard screaming and found 78-year-old Nancy Reyburn stuck in a window. 

Sanchez was delivering papers in the Crystal Lake Club in Avon Park, and it would become the most important stop of his life. 

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"I never heard an 80-year lady scream so loud and that caught my attention,"Sanchez said. "I got really nervous when I saw her sticking out the windows like this."

Reyburn was stuck in her own window. She'd locked herself out of the house late Monday evening and tried breaking her way back in. But quickly, things went from bad to worse.

"Because of surgery, I had with two hip replacements, I can’t get past mid-part of my leg," she said. "I’m reaching around the more moving I did, the worse I felt."

She was stuck in this window for five hours.  No one could hear her and hope was running out. 

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"I was asking God, ‘please this is not the way I want to be found,’" Reyburn said. 

And just when it seemed that all hope was lost, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the blinking orange light on top of Sanchez's car.  

"How I screamed, I have no idea," she said. 

Sanchez stuck by her and called 911, and help was finally on the way. Some are calling him the neighborhood guardian angel. 

"I’m touched, because I care for these people in this park, they're like my family, and they’re retired, and I try to watch out for them," Sanchez said. 

"Yes, I do believe in angels and people are put in a place for that time and that night, morning was my time to be helped by Jose," Reyburn said.