Caring souls save their missing customer

Sometimes customer service goes beyond a smile. Sometimes it involves saving a life.

Megan Schriner, 18, and Danielle Hastings, 27, work at a Dunkin’ Donuts together in Lisbon, Ohio. The franchise has its share of regular customers, one of whom is 73-year-old Gary Phillips. He came into the restaurant every day for doughtnuts and coffee, and Schriner and Hastings got to know him well enough to know how many pumps of vanilla beans he likes in his Coolatta.

But last week, Phillips didn’t show up. He even missed his birthday, when the employees had planned to give him a cake (they also knew that his wife had passed away last summer). After a week went by, Schriner and Hastings began to get worried.

“We knew something was wrong,” Schriner told the Salem News. “We kept telling him, ‘Remember you’ve got to be here Thursday for your birthday.’”

Hastings, who knew where Phillips lived because she once bumped into him with her children when trick-or-treating, decided to get to the bottom of his disappearance. She visited his home, but no one came to the door. But when she went around to his bedroom window and called out his name, she heard him call back. Phillips had fallen and couldn’t get up. He had been in that predicament for days.

She helped him to a hospital, where Phillips is recovering. He hopes to be well enough soon to enjoy a Coolatta.