(AP) — An alert newspaper delivery driver is credited with saving a former suburban Kansas City mayor after hearing the man’s cries for help in the pre-dawn darkness of one of the coldest mornings in decades.

Jeff Stockwell was delivering in Shawnee, Kan., at 3:30 a.m. Monday when he heard what sounded like the wail of a cat trying to get indoors. He says the sound registered as strange the next time he heard it, so he got out of his vehicle and found 77-year-old former Shawnee Mayor Tony Soetaert leaning against a vehicle in his open garage.

Stockwell says Soetaert thought he had been there about an hour. He was taken to a hospital in stable condition and kept overnight Monday as a precaution.