Her breathing, if it continued at all, was so shallow and so infrequent that no visible chest movement occurred.

She lay completely still in the dark.

When Wally Nelson’s door opened in the morning and he almost stepped on her, he saw what any rational person would have seen in that situation: a young woman who had frozen to death on his porch.

He was wrong.

But he could not have known that yet.

The Drive To Fosston

Wally Nelson made the right decision in the wrong order.

He should perhaps have called for an ambulance — 911 had existed since 1968, though its availability in rural north-central Minnesota in 1980 was not as reliable as it is today.