Journal-News.com

COLLINSVILLE — Besides the postmaster, the Collinsville Post Office has one employee, Lynne Ratliff, who works Saturdays and whenever Postmaster Robert Barrett is off during the week.

Local residents come in to check their mailbox at the post office, located in the converted garage of a brick ranch house that the U.S. postal service leases on Huston Street.

Despite it's small size, or maybe because of it, the post office carries a large parcel of heart for its customers.

Ratliff, 45, will soon receive a commendation from the U.S. Postal Service for making sure resident Robert Williams got the medical attention he needed.

Last month, Williams walked in to check his mail and chatted with Ratliff, who noticed a bandage on his left ring finger. The 80-year-old told Ratliff that his dying cat, Shelby, had bit him a few days earlier while he was trying to make the feline more comfortable.

"When he turned his hand over, that's when the seriousness of the situation set in," Ratliff said.

The wound had become infected. Ratliff said she could see red streaks stretching under the skin from the sore and Williams' hand was swollen and hot to the touch.

"I told him that he needed to call his daughter, and that he needed to go to the doctor right away," Ratliff said.

Williams' daughter, Lynda Coombs, who lives next door to her father, got the call at work and rushed home to take her father to The Fort Hamilton Hospital.

Williams was in emergency surgery a few hours later. Coombs said doctors gave her father a tetanus shot and opened up the wound to let it drain out. He was in the hospital for four days.

Williams, who's going through occupational therapy to regain movement in his finger, said he thought the pain would go away and that the wound would heal before Ratliff intervened.

"Lynne is a very special lady. She looks out for people," Williams said. "My daughter is very wonderful too. Without her I wouldn't be here."

Coombs said she worries a little less about her father, knowing that there are people like Ratliff, who look out for their "fellow man."

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2122 or rwilson@coxohio.com.

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