A 94-year-old was lying in the cold for hours: How his newspaper delivery saved his life

In the heart of a mid-January deep freeze, an eastern Indiana newspaper employee was determined to deliver her papers on time.

It turned out to be in the nick of time for a 94-year-old man who did the same job himself as a boy.

Heidi Lipscomb, a distribution manager for Gannett Co. Inc. in Richmond, Indiana, was filling in for a delivery driver whose car wouldn't start in the bitter cold.

It was 2 degrees at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday morning when Lipscomb pulled into the driveway of Bill Denny’s home to drop off the Richmond Palladium-Item and Indianapolis Star. She immediately noticed the garage door was open and the lights in the house were on.

When Lipscomb stepped from the car, she told the IndyStar later, she saw Denny lying on his back in front of the garage. He wore a brown down coat, boots and brown cap and was immobile except for slight movements of his arms. His eyes were open but he couldn’t speak. His hands were black and his knuckles oozed blood.

“I was shocked to come upon this,” said Lipscomb, a Gannett employee of 25 years who often fills in for absent carriers (Gannett is the parent company of the Indianapolis Star and USA TODAY). “I told him, 'I’m getting you some help.'”

Paramedics came in five minutes and rushed Denny to a nearby hospital. Lipscomb finished delivering papers.

'I'm very fortunate'

Hours later, Lipscomb checked in at the hospital. Not only was Denny OK, but he could see visitors. He’d suffered frostbite on his hands but otherwise was in good health. Another 30 minutes in the cold, however, could have been deadly.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “All I could think was, ‘Thank God he’s alive.’ He must be one tough bird.”

The least she could do, Lipscomb thought, was bring Denny his newspapers. He’d been a subscriber for 60 years, after all.

When she walked into hospital room 508 and told Denny who she was, he and his visitors declared a mystery solved.

“The final piece of the puzzle,” Denny's niece, Debbie Doggett, 72, said. ”She kept him alive.”

Denny said he was returning home from dinner at 7:30 p.m. Monday when he lost his balance, fell over and was knocked unconscious. He had no recollection of lying in the cold or seeing Lipscomb come to help.

“I must have hit my head, and when I woke up I didn’t know where I was,” Denny said from his hospital room. “I'm very fortunate Heidi was there to get the ambulance called. I never had a close call like that, not even the war.”

Denny, who worked as a mechanical engineer at Belden Wire & Cable in Richmond for 35 years, served in the Korean War as a helicopter mechanic. His wife of 51 years, Hilda Marie Denny, died at age 95 in 2016.

Denny said he delivered papers as a boy and his brother George “Dick” Denny was a sportswriter for the Indianapolis News for 30 years. Doggett’s father, John Smith, worked at the Palladium-Item for 40 years in the composing room and public relations.

Subscriber marks his 95th birthday

Friend Barry Bussen said Denny has always been resilient, and even in his 90s he still drives his late-model van to the local VFW post every day − sometimes twice − to eat and visit friends.

It didn’t surprise him that Denny made it through his “little ordeal” relatively unscathed, Bussen said. He will go through physical and occupational therapy to regain circulation to his hands.

“He’s stubborn, I’ll say that, and very sharp for his age,” Bussen, 80, said. “After 12 hours he wanted to go home from the hospital."

He recently celebrated his 95th birthday, but that was secondary, his friend said.

“We’ve just been celebrating that he made it through this.”

John Tuohy can be reached at john.tuohy@indystar.com. Follow him on Facebook and X/Twitter.