CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — You’ve heard the saying “a mile a minute.” You’ve probably felt that way and said it yourself. How many small moments did you miss? How many people in need have you walked by? For one man, he took an hour during his busy workday and it saved a life.
“I clean, I push carts, I help people, I do carry-out," Josh Redfield, maintenance manager at the Tops at the Cheektowaga’s Thruway Plaza, said.
Redfield even holds a record for most carts pushed in the snow.
“It was 50 carts I pushed in the snow,” Redfield said. “I’m trying to break that record.”
He also is one-for-one in saving lives.
“A customer was getting in their car, and they said, 'Josh, something is wrong with that car right there, there's a lady in it,'” he recalled.
Redfield went to investigate.
“Her car was about sticking out to about right here,” Redfield showed in the parking lot.
Redfield then chatted with the woman in the car.
“She was talking, slurring a little bit, but I could understand what she was saying,” Redfield recalled.
Unknown to Redfield, the woman in the car, Lynne Constantino, is a diabetic and her glucose levels were dangerously low.
“I was just standing here making sure she was all right, checking on her,” Redfield showed. “Then I go back around and do my carts and come back, and it was a full circle of keep coming back.”
Redfield offered her candy and she drank some orange juice.
“It just got worse and worse,” Redfield said.
So he ran inside to talk to his boss, Nick Jaworski.
“He came in and we got ahold of the EMTs and they came and helped her,” Jaworski said. “And Josh stayed with her throughout the whole thing.”
Looking back, Jaworski isn’t surprised by Redfield’s life-saving actions.
“I don’t ever have to tell Josh to do anything that's good,” Jaworski smiled.
For Redfield, it was just another day he was thankful to be alive.
“Waking up in the morning and seeing my son, seeing my family, coming to work and seeing my Tops family is the reward,” Redfield said.
He says don’t forget to treasure life, too, even if it isn’t your own.
“Don't just walk by and leave them there,” Redfield said. “That's not God's plan to just leave them there. You wouldn't want that to happen to you.”
Constantino, the woman Redfield helped, came to the store to the next day to thank him. She couldn’t make it to our interview in-person due to a sick family member, but she shared her continued gratitude to Redfield over the phone. She also says people need to be more like Redfield, and help others, stranger or friend.