By Town Crier Staff Report

Longtime Los Altos resident Barbara Carter had just lost her husband when a plugged sewer line Aug. 3 resulted in a flood at her home on Deodora Drive. At first, Los Altos city workers said they couldn’t help. Then they told her she needed new pipes that would cost thousands of dollars that she couldn’t afford.

City workers came out the following week and worked three to four hours, but they couldn’t find the source of obstruction.

Still grieving and exasperated, Carter was ready to throw up her hands when she received a call from John Sheehan, the general manager for Roto-Rooter in San Mateo.

Hearing Carter’s story, he sent a crew to find the clean-out pipe and address the backup.

“They went way beyond the call of duty,” Carter said.

“They were out from 1 to 7 p.m., digging.”

The Roto-Rooter people also couldn’t find the original clean-out pipe, an angle joint of pipe that sticks out of the ground and allows public works workers to clean out obstructions.

“Over the years, it got buried under some pretty big shrubs,” Sheehan said.

Instead, workers built a new clean-out pipe so city workers could finish the job of clearing the pipe.

“When I asked him how much, he said, ‘No charge’,” Carter said. “He’s (Sheehan) my hero, my angel.”

Carter, who has dedicated much of her life to volunteer work and giving to others, said she believed this was God’s way of giving back to her.

Carter’s situation touched a similar memory for Sheehan, who lost his father 2 1/2 years ago. The day before his father died, he had removed a toilet with the intention of replacing it the next day. His mother was left with the plumbing hassles as well as the funeral expenses.

“I know what widows have to go through,” Sheehan said, adding that he’d had no intention of doing the good deed “for publicity reasons.”

Carter, however, did not want to leave the good deed unpublished.

“God bless that man,” she said. “I’ll be grateful forever.”