North Carolina mail carrier Marshun Brooks has received clearance from the United States Postal Service (USPS) to return to work after the postal company suspended her without pay for attending to a medical emergency.
On Nov. 20, Brooks suffered chest pains and shortness of breath while delivering mail. According to WBTV, she followed protocol by calling 911 and messaging her supervisors about her location and condition. Still, after hospitalization and doctor-ordered recovery time, Brooks returned to the USPS only to discover she had allegedly been suspended without pay for “abandoning her route.”
Brooks said she immediately called emergency services that morning and sent a notification through the postal service messaging system. “I’m going to put my health before anything,” the postal worker later stated after she spent nearly six hours in the ER before she took an Uber back to the mail station that evening.
The woman’s supervisors allegedly ignored her earlier alerts and made no inquiries about her health.“Did you not all see the text message I sent? Because I just got released from the hospital,” she asked her supervisor upon returning her mail truck keys that night. The supervisor allegedly only asked where the postal vehicle was, without any expression of concern.
A few days later, after her doctor cleared Brooks to resume work, a supervisor notified her of an unpaid suspension for deserting her mail route mid-shift.
“It’s totally just unfair, inhumane, no type of empathy, none, whatsoever,” a distraught Brooks commented. In response to media requests, a postal service spokesperson recited the official policy that carriers suffering medical events should “seek medical attention immediately” by visiting an ER or dialing 911 – precisely what Brooks did. “Safety is a top priority for the Postal Service,” the spokesman said.
“They don’t want to take [any] accountability,” and “I’m being penalized for it,” Brooks protested regarding her suspension. Postal authorities eventually provided a letter permitting her job reinstatement. The Dec. 19 letter offered no back pay or apology for the disciplinary action against Brooks for following protocol during a health emergency.