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07/24/2008 07:50 AM

 

Postal Carrier Saves House – Twice July 24, 2008 ECO Staff -- Laure Cioffi, senior journalist ELLWOOD CITY – Postal carrier Dennis Doak keeps an eye out for anything unusual when he is delivering mail. Fire officials say it was his sharp eye that saved a north side house twice this summer. Ellwood City Council gave the 22-year postal service veteran a commendation at their meeting earlier this week for his alert response. Doak said he was delivering mail on the 700 block of Wampum Avenue June 6 when he heard a fire alarm going off. “I tried to find out if anybody was home. Since nobody was there, I called my supervisor,” he said. Lucky for the resident, fire fighters got there in time before a fire started. A plug-in room deodorizer had overheated and smoke was coming from it. Doak said fire fighters told him that it would have been a matter of minutes before fire broke out. A few weeks later, Doak was delivering mail to the same home and heard the smoke alarm going off again. Thankfully, it was not a fire that second time, he said. The resident has since replaced the smoke detectors, Doak said. Doak said he tries to keep an eye on all the homes in his mail route. “It’s kind of a little bit of a watch we do,” he said. Ralph DeTullio, officer in charge at the Ellwood City Post Office, said he encourages the carriers to be on the lookout for anything unusual. “If there’s anything odd at a residence. If the mail is backing up, we want the carriers to let us know,” DeTullio said. (Laure Cioffi can be reached at LaureCioffi@ellwoodcity.org)