SALEM, Ore. --- The Domino's Pizza shop on Silverton Road is known for its delivery and carryout service. Now it's known for its life-saving skills as well.
On Sunday, a team of employees at the northeast Salem store were talking about how long it had been since they'd heard from one of their regular customers, Kirk Alexander.
The middle-aged man was known, especially among evening shift drivers, for his near-daily order, which varied and which he placed almost daily for more than seven years.
Realizing that they hadn't heard from him for a few days, Sarah Fuller, the store's general manager, worked with her assistant manager Jenny Seiber, and together they looked up his last order. They discovered 11 days had lapsed since he'd last phoned in for pizza, wings or a sandwich.
"Several of our drivers had commented that they hadn't seen an order come through for him recently," Fuller said. "And when we looked it up, we knew instantly it wasn't normal."
Concerned because they knew he had some health problems, they tried calling his phone number, but it immediately went to voicemail, said Fuller, who has been the general manager since 2011.
"It was about 1 a.m. Sunday morning, and we weren't terribly busy," Fuller said. "So I asked one of our regular drivers who knew Alexander to stop by the customer's home on Penticton Circle NE and check it out. We all know Kirk and he only lives about 6 minutes from our store, so the whole team was concerned."
The driver reported back that no one was answering the door, but that the interior lights and television set were on.
The team back at the store told the driver to call 911 immediately.
When a sheriff's unit arrived on the scene, deputies could hear a man calling for help from inside the residence, said Lt. Chris Baldridge with the Marion County Sheriff's Office. They forced entry into the home, and found Alexander, 48, on the floor and in need of "immediate medical attention."
Fuller said several members of the staff, herself and Seiber included, have visited Alexander in the hospital, but they're trying not to tax him. They said he smiled and nodded when he saw them, indicating he knew the role the staff played in his getting help.
Jenny Fouracre, director of public relations at Domino's headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich., said the Salem's store's efforts to help Alexander were consistent with the customer service message they try to deliver.
"We are proud of our team members who took the initiative to reach out and help a regular customer who was in distress," Fouracre said. "There are thousands of Domino’s stores across the country, but every store is really a part of their neighborhood, delivering to people in their homes, which means we often get to know our customers well. We have many stories of how our stores have helped regular customers in ways that are big and small over the years, which is a level of customer service and commitment to our communities that we hope everyone will emulate."
Fuller agreed.
"We're like a family here, and we were glad we were able to do something to help," Fuller said. "We hope he's able to fully recover from this."
Mark Glyzewski, a spokesman for Salem Health, said Alexander was in fair condition.
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