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