Why this delivery driver's photo of a pile of leaves is going viral

A photo of what appears to be nothing more than a pile of leaves has gone viral after a delivery driver noticed something very wrong during a routine drop-off.

Jordan Weaver was driving through the Indiana suburb of Elkhart in the US on November 5, when he got out of his vehicle to deliver a package.

“He walked across the street to deliver a package to a woman that was leaf blowing in her yard,” the UPS director of corporate media relations Glenn Zaccara told Yahoo Lifestyle.

“She took the package and started walking into her home, and Jordan started walking back across the street to his truck.”

That’s when he noticed the little boy submerged in a huge pile of leaves practically in the street.

“I couldn’t believe it at first — my heart completely stopped,” Mr Weaver told local media.

Moments later, the boy emerged from the leaves and ran back towards the house that Mr Weaver had just delivered a package to. Unable to simply walk away, he returned to the house to inform the child’s mother just how wrong things could have gone if a car had been travelling down the edge of the road.

Determined to use the scare as a learning moment, Mr Weaver shared the photo with his colleagues – unaware just how viral it was about to become.

“Weaver sent the picture to the co-chair of the safety committee program, which every facility has,” Zaccara detailed.

That person, Theresa Baker, posted it on her Facebook page, “with the intent of sharing it with other drivers and just locally.”

It’s safe to say, the message was delivered. That post, which has since been deleted, had garnered 33,000 reactions and nearly 400,000 shares as of Tuesday afternoon.