FedEx driver saves elderly woman from fire

ETOWAH, Tenn. (WTVC) - A FedEx driver in Tennessee did more than just deliver packages this week. He helped save a woman as a fire tore through her home.

Mattie White’s kitchen was left with ripped ceilings and ashes Wednesday, but there is a bright side to this story - an unlikely hero.

“He was one in a million, one in a lifetime,” she said.

White, 87, is grateful to be alive after what she went through only a day before.

“You could see the blaze, you know. And I said, ‘Oh, Lord!’” she said.

She left grease on her stove then moments later says she took nitroglycerin and two aspirins for a health condition.

That’s when she fell asleep, and her house caught fire.

White says there are several heroes in this story like her dog, Love, who woke her up.

“She jumped up. My hand was down, and she was biting on my hand. And I woke up,” she said.

Her neighbors also helped, saving her Love.

But there’s another hero, a stranger, who answered her calls for help.

“If the FedEx driver hadn’t done what he’d done, we wouldn’t be sitting on this porch today,” said James Abbott, White’s neighbor.

Eldon Bourg, a FedEx driver, was on his regular delivery route when White screamed about the fire.

He called 911 and didn’t hesitate to go into her house and start putting out the fire himself with a sink hose and fire extinguishers.

WTVC was able to find the hero White desperately wanted to thank.

“The stove … I had to pull it out because the flames back here I couldn’t get it. I had the hose right here spraying it,” Bourg explained.

He was left with some scars, but he says it was the right thing to do. It was an act that left him humble but an elderly woman grateful.

“And I want to thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart,” White said.

It’s a delivery she will never forget.

“Come back and see me any day,” she told him.

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