| Perhaps it's because of their no-nonsense | | | | trapped residents on to his trailer. Modest |
| attitude, or maybe it is just because there | | | | in the response to praise from fire crews, |
| are so many of them on the road, but when | | | | Lee commented "It's not like I rescued anyone |
| they aren't busy working on various haulage | | | | from a burning building. I'd do it again." |
| jobs many lorry drivers seem to moonlight as | | | | |
| have-a-go heroes. Whenever a member of the | | | | Fight fire with lorry |
| public is hailed as a hero for rescuing those | | | | |
| in danger, more often than not it turns out | | | | Now for someone who DID save people from a |
| to be a lorry driver, or so it seems, and in | | | | burning building! Quick thinking from a lorry |
| the best stories, the lorry plays as big a | | | | driver (and an unconventional use of his |
| part as the driver in the rescue. | | | | lorry trailer) helped to save two people from |
| | | | a burning restaurant in September 2004. |
| The Dog Whisperer | | | | |
| | | | After a deep fat fryer caused a blaze at a |
| Les Petch, a lorry driver who lives in | | | | KFC in Horsham, two people were left trapped |
| Darlington, saved the life of a ten year old | | | | in the flat above the restaurant and were |
| boy who was being savaged by a bull mastiff | | | | preparing to jump into the street. The lorry |
| in May 2008. The boy was playing on a patch | | | | driver, parked across the road and in the |
| of grass on the Darlington Red Hall Estate | | | | middle of a haulage job, quickly reversed |
| when the dog began to bite and maul him. Les | | | | beneath the window, giving them a soft |
| heard the commotion, rushed out, subdued the | | | | landing on the canvas roof of his trailer. |
| dog and then sat on it until help arrived. | | | | |
| Les was bitten in the stomach, and the boy | | | | Red hot delivery |
| required a number of skin grafts after the | | | | |
| serious attack. "I managed to coax the dog | | | | Another fire related story to finish up with! |
| off the kid by shouting at it," Les said. | | | | Whilst waiting at a set of traffic lights in |
| "When it started to run at me I just thought, | | | | March 2007, a lorry driver hauling crushed |
| 'what am I doing?' But it was either me or | | | | cars and scrap metal was informed by a member |
| the dog - and it wasn't going to be me." | | | | of the public that his trailer seemed to be |
| | | | on fire, with smoke billowing out of the back |
| "Delivery at any time, any place, and in any | | | | of his lorry. The lorry driver calmly drove |
| weather..." | | | | to a nearby fire station, but the fire was |
| | | | burning deep in a pile of scrap metal and |
| Lee Hall, a lorry driver in West Yorkshire, | | | | firefighters were unable to extinguish it. |
| earned a special commendation from | | | | Unruffled, the lorry driver, with the help of |
| firefighters after he helped rescue sixteen | | | | a police escort, drove his lorry to its |
| people during the floods in January 2008. | | | | original destination, the Norton scrapyard in |
| With fire crews stretched thin and struggling | | | | Liverpool, where cranes pulled apart the |
| to rescue people trapped in their homes, Lee | | | | trailer and fire crews finally managed to put |
| reversed his lorry past a row of flooded | | | | out the blaze. |
| houses, allowing fire fighters to lift | | | | |