Nobody quite knows how they’d react in the case of an emergency situation. We all like to hope we’d be the hero of the day – but how many people would have the quick thinking to act fast?
One person can certainly say he acted a hero after hurrying to save a stranger’s house, and his name is Jason Sloan.
Jason is a FedEx driver, and was filling in for a coworker on Veterans Day in his Los Angeles neighborhood.
His quiet, normal afternoon was interrupted when he discovered smoke billowing out from a back yard in the street he was driving through.
The house belonged to Albert and Selena Ríos, who were both at work at the time of the incident.
The simple solution for Jason would be to call 911 and wait for the fire brigade to arrive, but when he spotted a hose in the front yard, he jumped into action.
The FedEx driver first called to a neighbor, asking him to check if anyone was home. But no one answered the door.
The home’s doorbell camera captures the moment as Jason grabbed the hose and started aiming water over the fence.
He couldn’t quite get the height he needed, so he climbed onto a couple of trashcans to put out the flames from a better angle.
By the time Jason had nearly put out the fire, Albert, the homeowner, had learned from his neighbors that his yard was on fire.
He rushed home, and by the time he arrived, the fire was put out and Jason had vanished.
All Selena and Albert knew was that Jason had acted above and beyond to save their home. Selena recalled:
“Every single neighbor was like, ‘The FexEd guy is a hero. Like, he really acted out of nowhere.'”
It was only when the story made it to Inside Edition that the Ríos family learned of Jason’s identity and met up with him to give their thanks.
After a socially-distant hello, Selena said:
“We really want to thank you for what you did for us, you know, potentially saved our home.”
Jason remained humble about his actions, saying,
“I feel great. I feel good. At the same time, I’m just happy their house didn’t get burned down.”
There’s no knowing how serious the incident could have been if Jason hadn’t have intervened.
Los Angeles is a big problem area for wildfires, and the back yard fire at the Ríos family home could have spread to other gardens and potentially caused some serious damage.
It’s estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of wildfires occur on their own in nature, despite the fact that they’re classed by the Environmental Protection Agency as natural disasters.
The other 85 to 90 percent of these fires have human-related causes, though it’s not clear what started the fire in the Ríos’ garden.
There’s no denying that Jason was in the right place at the right time, preventing a problem from getting out of hand.
People who commented on the clip of Jason putting out the fire said that he deserves a pay rise, or at the very least, some sort of formal recognition from his employer for his actions.
You can watch the video below to see Jason, the heroic FedEx driver, saving a stranger’s day with his quick-thinking.
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