Joshua Vincent only had to ask a few questions before he realized something wasn’t right about the voice on the other end of the line. It wasn’t until much later that he, the caller or anyone else would realized how dire the situation could have been had he not kept her on the line.

Vincent was working the night shift late last March, answering customer service calls for Clark Public Utilities at its offices on Fort Vancouver Way, when 66-year-old Laurel Faught called around 8 p.m. At this point in Vincent’s shift, he’d usually be at a different PUD location, alongside a different cast of co-workers. But, for whatever reason, he spent this night in one spot.

“I can’t tell you why I was there,” he said. “But it was a very good thing I was there, because I got some help from a co-worker who was working at the fire department before and let me know you can get a call out from the fire department without them turning on the sirens.”

About 15 minutes before Vincent was to go on break, Faught called the customer service line to follow up on an in-home energy assistance appointment she had earlier that day. Vincent pulled up her account history and immediately saw she was always on top of things. The workers who had visited her earlier that day said she was well-prepared when they arrived.

“Usually when you look at an account … you can tell how on top of things that customer is. She is a person who is very much on top of things. And our conversation wasn’t adding up with that,” he said.