Michigan letter carrier dies after porch collapses

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“We have completed our on scene investigation. We’re waiting for the autopsy report to come back,” he said.

Nancy Schafer, 46, of Dundee, had worked out of the Dundee post office since 1993 and routinely delivered mail to 290 Midway Street, said Edward Moore, a spokesman for the U. S. Postal Service.

“It just happens to be a tragic, freak accident,” he said. “That’s one of her routine stops.”

He said the Postal Service’s Safety Investigative Team was continuing to look into how the accident occurred. Uhl said he believes that the medical examiner will conclude that Schafer died of “positional mechanical asphyxia.” In short, her chest couldn’t expand because of the pressure from the slabs.

“I’ve been a police officer for 34 years and never have seen anything like this,” Uhl said.

He said he was notified of the accident at 2:30 p.m. When he arrived at the house, the fire department was there along with the Monroe County ambulance service. Many postal workers also showed up at the scene.

It appeared that a 10-foot by 10-foot concrete porch about 8 inches thick cracked in half as she stood on it. Schafer fell into a 10-foot deep root cellar beneath the porch and the slabs, which weighed about 500 pounds each, also fell in and pinned her.

She was talking on the phone with another postal worker at the time of the accident, Uhl said. “She screamed for help ‘I’m on Midway Street and the porch fell on me,’” Uhl said quoting the postal worker.

Uhl said the concrete slab was supported by I-beams and that he noticed that one of the exposed ones was “torn, hanging, rusted through.”

It’s likely that the homeowner didn’t know the cellar was under the porch because the access to the cellar which is from the basement had been sealed up, Uhl said.