Resident saved from burning house by Fed Ex delivery man

Above, Leonard Carroll gets and embrace from his wife after escaping from the couple’s burning home in Emlyn Friday.

A Fed Ex delivery man, who happened to be an off-duty London firefighter, is being credited with saving the life of a Williamsburg man during a house fire Friday morning.

John Anderson was driving by when he saw flames and reported the fire at 3104 Old 92 West to Whitley County 911 about 9:30 a.m., said Goldbug Volunteer Fire Chief Brandon Woods.

Anderson then beat on the door to wake up Leonard Carroll, who had gone back to bed after his child had gone to school and his wife had left for work.

"All I heard was somebody beating on the door," Carroll said.

At the time Carroll didn’t know the house was on fire until he walked downstairs to find it full of smoke.

Then he ran out the back door with just the clothes he was wearing. A volunteer firefighter provided him with a pair of boots once he got back outside and someone else provided him with a shirt.

"He didn’t have to do it, but I’m glad he did," Carroll said about Anderson, who he credits for saving his life.

Constable Jim Thornton was the next emergency responder on the scene and said he arrived just in time to see the right side of the home going up in flames from the ground floor up and Carroll walking around the from  back of the house.

"He was lucky. He wouldn’t have been able to get downstairs once it filled up with smoke," Thornton said.

Woods said that despite firefighters arriving at the home within five minutes of getting the call, the structure was largely engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

The best firefighters could do was try to keep the blaze from spreading to surrounding structures, he said.

"There was no entering the house to try and save it or anything like that," Woods noted.

Firefighters were on the scene for about four hours. Woods said Friday morning that the fire reportedly started around a fireplace but firefighters hadn’t been able to get inside to verify this or make a determination about the exact cause of the blaze.

"It may be hard to find an exact cause. It is completely gutted," Woods noted.

Officials were also still trying to determine at the scene Friday morning whether a dog that lived inside the residence made it out alive.

Carroll said that he had lived at the home for about three years and was buying the two-story wood framed house from Oscar Davenport on a land contract.

Davenport said that the house was at least 40 years old, but he didn’t know exactly when it was built.

"It been there as long as I can remember," he noted.

Davenport said he had driven by the home earlier that morning and saw smoke coming out the chimney, but didn’t think anything much about it at the time.

45 minutes later when he was getting ready to run he heard sirens and saw smoke in that direction.

"I turned back and there was flames. It was gone," Davenport said.

Davenport said that he isn’t sure what he will do with the completely destroyed house now, but said he will clean up the lot and maybe put a rental trailer on the property.

About 16 firefighters from Goldbug, Emlyn, Williamsburg and Pleasant View fire departments all responded to the scene. Whitley County EMS also assisted at the scene.