VALDOSTA, Ga. (WALB) - In August, Raheem Cooper was on his normal route when he stepped out of his truck to find an elderly woman lying on the ground. Many saw it as an act of heroism, but he saw it as a way to build a lifelong connection.

“I told her at that point she was grandmother so we are pretty much family,” Cooper said.

The woman was checked into the hospital as Jane Doe and later identified as Marie Coble.

Kayla Cochran, her granddaughter, said had it not been for Cooper, doctors say she would not have survived.

“I found his number and called him and told him thank you,” Cochran said. “That he was truly an angel to our family to have found her because if he wouldn’t have, she would have died that day.”

Since the incident, Cooper has stayed in contact with Coble’s family and visited her in the hospital weekly to bring her favorite snack: Twinkies.

“Five days after the surgery, she hadn’t talked at all,” Cochran said. “And when he came into the room, she brightened up and actually pushed herself up and gave him a hug. That’s the first time since this whole thing has happened.”

Cooper started a GoFundMe to help the family with travel and Coble’s increasing medical expenses.

“Most of her family is coming from out of state to visit her and everything, so I felt like it could take a lot off of the family and I just wanted to be a helping hand for them,” Cooper said.

Cochran said after emergency brain surgery her grandmother is starting to return to normal, and now the family is focused on her recovery to get back in her own home.

Earlier this week Raheem Cooper, received a letter from UPS’s chief executive officer for his acts of heroism, along with tickets to the Florida State University football game from a coworker. Locally, the UPS warehouse gave him a luncheon and presented a plague for his act.

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