Garbage man saves couple and their dog from fire
There's nothing quite as terrifying to imagine as being trapped in a house fire. Most people are taught what to do if they smell smoke or a fire breaks out in their house. In fact, one of the biggest positives for encouraging closed doors in the home is the door helps keep the fire contained outside of the door for a longer period of time. This gives anyone trapped inside the room a chance to climb out of the nearest window or a longer window of rescue if the room has no escape.
One couple found themselves living this nightmare when their apartment caught fire while they were trapped inside with their dog. The situation could've turned into a much greater tragedy had it not been trash day. Tiffany Dupree, her partner Zac(corr) Braden and their dog Skye were stuck in their burning apartment in Tipton, West Midlands in England when a garbage truck drove by and saw the fire.
Steve Whitehouse and Kevin Marriott were the garbage truck workers who spotted the flames coming from the apartment and spotted Dupree screaming on the balcony. Instead of just calling it in, the garbagemen pulled their truck over and got to work rescuing the occupants inside without hesitation.
"I saw a young woman screaming from the balcony and all I could think was that I needed to get to her as quickly as possible, Whitehouse tells BBC Radio.
Upon seeing the woman, Whitehouse jumped out of his truck and scaled a wall in order to get to the balcony, pulling the woman out of harms way within seconds. When Dupree was safe, the garbageman turned his attention to the thick smoke coming from inside the apartment.
"The smoke was getting thicker. I called to anyone else who might be inside and could hear a young man shouting in distress for his dog. I managed to bundle up the dog in a blanket, jumped back down to the ground, and got the owner to throw the dog to me. I then went back up to help him,” Whitehouse explains to BBC Radio.
According to the Daily Mail, firemen believe the fire was started by an e-bike battery exploding while it was charging on the bottom of the stairs. Since the fire originated at the stairwell, it made it impossible for the couple to escape the blaze. Dupree is currently awaiting to be relocated by the council but in the meantime, the couple was only able to escape with the clothes they were wearing and their dog.
"'It was about 8 am when I heard popping and rustling sounds. I thought it was my dog, Skye, but he was asleep in the kitchen. I heard three bangs and as I opened the living room door there was a huge boom," Dupree tells Daily Mail.
Dupree and her partner don't live together, so it's only her things that need to be replaced, so her sister-in-law Keeleigh Seymour created a GoFundMe to help replace clothing and furniture.