The sight of her mailbox mangled by vandals and dumped in her driveway was too much for Jo Bailey to bear Saturday morning.
She had recently been diagnosed with cancer and is agonizing over the start of chemotherapy.
This mailbox indignity was the "last straw," she said.
"August was a bad month. So when I walked out there and saw the remains of my mailbox and the post just piled in my driveway I lost it. I just about came unglued," said the 75-year-old widow. "I'm surprised the (911) dispatcher understood me I was crying so hard."
Carson City Sheriff's Deputy Gary Denham said someone had taken great care to drive around the east side of Carson City, ripping out mailboxes or knocking down fences and then placing the items on porches or in driveways.
Bailey's was one of 25 similar vandalism reports the Sheriff's Department would take Saturday morning.
But, said Denham, "Of all the people in the world they could have done this too, they had to pick a lady that didn't have the means, or the money or the physical strength to fix it herself."
So Denham said he finished his shift, recruited Sgt. Darrin Sloan, and the two drove to Home Depot to buy supplies. About 4:45 p.m. the duo pulled up outside Bailey's home near Eagle Valley Middle School.
Over the next two hours, Denham and Sloan cut a post, reassembled the mailbox and dug a deep hole.
"I think it went halfway to China," said Bailey.
Then they reinstalled the mailbox, packing it in with concrete.
"That post isn't going anywhere," she said.
Denham, a deputy for three years in Carson City and 16 years before that in Washington, said he takes seriously his oath to "protect and serve."
"She just couldn't fix it herself and I wasn't about to let her mail service suffer because of some knuckleheads acting like knuckleheads," he said. "I took an oath to protect and serve. You've got to remember the serve part. You can't just throw people in jail and walk away."
Bailey said she was flabbergasted by Denham and Sloan's kindness.
"They went the extra mile, to calm me down and help me regain my composure. They were just flat out marvelous," said Bailey. "As a matter of fact, I gave Gary a big hug before he left, and then I stole one from Darrin too."