City Carrier Assistant Marc Dunlap was recently delivering mail in a Sioux City, IA, neighborhood when customers expressed concern about a smoke detector beeping at an older neighbor’s home.
As one customer called 911 and the other attempted to reach the woman by phone, Dunlap saw smoke pouring out of her residence.
He realized time was of the essence.
The Postal Service employee safely entered her home, searched for her and extinguished a stove fire he discovered in the kitchen.
It was determined that the woman had inadvertently left the stove on when she went shopping with her daughter.
Without Dunlap’s decisive action, a neighbor later told local Postmaster Sommer Monlux, “the house may have burned down. He went well above and beyond his job.”