Kansas City-Area Postal Workers Saves Residents From Apartment Fire

Kansas City, Mo. — A mailman risked his life Tuesday night to warn people of a fire at their Kansas City, Missouri apartment building.

Quinton Neal said he was near the 5200 block of Independence Avenue when he saw smoke and then fire burning from the window of a three-story apartment building. When he noticed someone in the top window, he turned around — and people in the window saw that happen.

‘I kicked out the window and shouted, ‘Help, help!’ And I see him drive by and he stops,” said Shannon Holm, who was trapped in the apartment. “Next thing I know, he’s up the fire escape and pushing in my windows. And he was there for us, and I’m glad he was.”

Neal said he parked the UPS vehicle in front of the building, then ran to the door and kicked it open, yelling, “Hey, is anyone here? Where are you, where are you?”

He heard someone yelling from the top floor to get to the fire escape.

“When I saw them through the window, I tried to pull down the fire escape,” Neal said. “But the fire escape, it was stuck. So I jumped off the wall and up the fire escape to help them out the window.”

Neal helped one person down, then helped Holm and Holm’s dog get out, and finally tried to help a woman down – but she was afraid of heights.

“I saw the neighbor with a roof ladder, so I ran over with the roof ladder and brought the roof ladder next to the fire escape,” Neal said. “And I climbed up the roof ladder, helped her up the ladder and helped her down. And all the time I helped her, I said to her, ‘Everything will be fine. I’m here.’”

Neal said that with his previous law enforcement background, if he sees someone in danger, he helps them. He has been working with the postal service for over a year and said this incident was just another way of helping people.

“With the post office, you help people get their medicines, you help people pay their bills, you help people do other things,” Neal said. “You don’t come to work thinking, ‘Hey, I can save some people from a fire.’ But that was just part of the job.”

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