There are times when UPS drivers need a little help. Here is one such time.

                     Passerby Helps Police Capture Suspects in Attack on UPS Driver

Burlington, Vermont – July 8, 2010

Nathan Noble’s work day was anything but mundane last Monday.

“It was pretty bad. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

The 23-year-old Hilton Hotel employee had just dropped some guests off at the airport and was driving back to the hotel when he saw something out the ordinary; a UPS driver being pulled out of his truck and beaten to a bloody pulp.

“Yep, threw him up against the fence and all I saw as his head getting smashed in,” Noble said.

The driver tells police he was ambushed. He claims he was driving down Grove Street in Burlington when two strangers suddenly threw a large tree branch in front of his truck. When he stopped to confront them– he says he was attacked.

“Just stupidity; sheer, plain stupidity,” Burlington Police Lt. Emmet Helrich said. “I literally think they just threw the log in front of the truck to be wise guys.”

Nathan Noble was one of several drivers that watched the attack unfold, but to his amazement he was the only one to stop.

“They literally slowed down and then just kept driving,” he said of the other motorists.

Noble called 911 and then picked up the branch and went after the two guys. And when they took off he continued to follow. Soon after, police arrested 19-year-old Jason O’Reilly and 18-year-old Nicholas Gardner. Something they say they couldn’t have done without Noble’s help.

“This kid just saw it and he knew he had to do something. So he ran out, which is pretty cool,” Helrich said.

UPS officials here in Williston would not comment on the driver’s injuries, other than to say he’s doing OK, but is still recovering.

Gardner and O’Reilly are being charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct and could receive jail time if convicted.