Pizza Delivery Man Saves Woman From Fire

A deliveryman in Saratoga County, New York was on his route in Clifton Park when he smelled smoke and saw a plume coming from a house.  He thought at first it was a bonfire, Raleigh Powell related later, but then he rounded the corner and saw the fire and the people in the front yard.

One of those people was Kenneth Keefer, an 86 year old man.  When Powell stopped and ran across the street to see if he could help, he found out that Keefer’s 83-year-old wife, Grace, was still inside the house.  The old man was unable to go in after her, so Powell did.  He immediately became a hero.

Using his arm, Powell shattered the bedroom window for the burning home and yelled for the woman to come out.  She didn’t answer, so he went to another window and smashed that.  The smoke was so thick, he couldn’t see inside, but when the woman crawled to the window, he could see her.

A neighbor appeared with a chair and Powell climbed on it to get inside the window to grab the suffocating woman.  When he got her coming through the window, the neighbor began helping to pull and the chair snapped form under Powell’s feet.

They got Grace out to safety, however, and out to the lawn just as firefighters arrived.  By the time the fire was out, the entire home was burnt to nothing more than framework.

The Keefers were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation and minor burns while Powell was treated on the scene for cuts to his arms where the broken glass had taken its toll.  “I didn’t realize I was bleeding,” he related to the local news channel, “until I looked down at Grace’s shirt.”  He was taken to a nearby urgent care center for stiches.

Neighbors agreed that if the pizza delivery man hadn’t come by when he did, Grace would not have lived.  Powell’s own home had burnt down two years before.

Raleigh Powell is a part-time delivery driver for Upper Crust, an Army Reservist, and a student at nearby Hudson Valley Community College.  He’s also a hero.