It is a news story making the rounds.

United States Postal Service mail carrier Kayla Berridge noticed mail piling up at a residence on her route in a small town in New Hampshire late last month.

According to various local and national news reports, she knew the resident to be a woman in her 80s. The woman’s car was in her driveway and hadn’t moved in several days.

Berridge contacted local police to check on the woman.

In CNN’s coverage of the story, Berridge explained, “I hadn’t seen her in a while and I noticed her mail wasn’t getting picked up, so I got a little concerned.”

Newmarket, N.H., police officers found the woman in the residence under a pile of items that toppled onto her days before. The woman was taken to the hospital, where she was treated for dehydration and hypothermia, according to news accounts. The woman was last reported as improving.

Truly a remarkable story worth highlighting, especially in our current world health crisis when self-isolation, social distance and cautionary practices around others have saved lives.

What Berridge did is formally known as a police welfare check.

The online resource The Law Dictionary, which draws from Black’s Law Dictionary, defines a police welfare check as follows:

“A welfare check, also known as a wellness check, is when police stop by a person’s home to make sure they are OK.”

A variety of reasons may prompt such action.

Saturday Night Live viewers and/or Ariana Grande fans may recall police checking on comedian Pete Davidson after concerning social media posts by Davidson following the end of the couple’s romance. Davidson was fine.

According to a recent media release, troopers from Pennsylvania State Police, Fogelsville, were called to residence in Lower Macungie Township last month to “check on the welfare of a female that lives there.” The woman had been hurt by another person, according to state police.

“Requests for welfare checks are made by friends, family and neighbors, typically after someone unexpectedly stops answering their phone or getting in touch with others,” according to The Law Dictionary.

A hair salon owner/family friend once left a voicemail out of concern I had not called for an appointment or stopped by her salon in several months. I made a trip to the salon to say hi the next day, sparing my friend a call to the police.

And you’ve likely heard about the woman in Illinois whose daughter, who lives in Seattle, Wash., requested a welfare check for her mother after not receiving her mother’s daily score in a game they play across the miles. The welfare check by police ended a hostage situation in which an intruder armed with scissors had held the older woman in her own home for more than 21 hours.

Not all welfare checks end as happily as mine, Davidson’s, Berridge’s, or that of Denyse Holt, the woman in Illinois. Welfare checks are not without their risks.

A television and movie actor was shot and wounded by police fulfilling a welfare check at her apartment in California. Vanessa Marquez was killed by police after her landlord called authorities out of concern for Marquez. Marquez later died of her wounds.

Welfare checks also may lead to discovery of death - natural, by accident or intentional.

However, if a welfare check can lead to an outcome similar to what was brought about by Berridge’s concern for a resident on her mail route, don’t we all benefit?

During work on this piece came news of Marinella Beretta, a 70-year-old woman in Prestino, a small town near Lake Como, Italy.

Beretta was found dead sitting in a chair in her home. She’d likely died two years ago, and her remains were found by fire crews who went to her home after complaints were lodged about a tree falling in her overgrown garden.

Beretta lived alone.

Now town officials are organizing her funeral, and the mayor has invited all town residents to the service. Italy’s Minister for Equal Opportunities and Family Elena Bonetti described Beretta’s death as a matter of “forgotten loneliness.”

“Taking care of each other is the experience of families, institutions of our being citizens,” Bonetti continued.

Let’s all be a bit like citizenship exemplar Kayla Berridge.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press