For more than a decade, 78-year-old Charlie Hicks rarely missed a meal at Shrimp Basket in Pensacola, Florida, the U.S., where he ordered the same meal twice a day: gumbo, rice and no crackers. Staff knew his routine so well that when Hicks failed to show up for two consecutive days in September, they immediately sensed something was wrong, People reported.
“Mr. Hicks don’t miss no days,” chef Donell Stallworth told CBS News. “We open the doors up, Mr. Hicks is there to greet us.”
“I knew, then, something was wrong,” he added.
After calling Hicks and learning he was feeling unwell, staff leader Denise Galloway began delivering his usual gumbo to his apartment. Hicks asked her to leave the food outside the door so she wouldn’t risk catching an infection. But after two days of deliveries, the restaurant stopped hearing from him altogether.
During a break in his shift, Stallworth drove to Hicks’ apartment and began knocking repeatedly. Just as he was about to leave, he heard a faint sound coming from inside.
“And right when I was going to turn, I heard something, a voice, just like, ‘Help,’” Stallworth said. “And then I opened the door up. He was [lying] on the ground, and I didn’t know what his condition was; that was the scariest part right there.”
Hicks was rushed to the hospital, where doctors found he had suffered two broken ribs and severe dehydration.
After he recovered, the Shrimp Basket staff helped Hicks find a new apartment right next to the restaurant.
“We made a connection,” Hicks told CBS News.
In a statement to PeopleShrimp Basket said the rescue reflects the company’s core belief that “people matter.”
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