Firefighting UPS Driver Gets His Reward: Tickets to a Celtics Playoff Game
Paul Pereira, @UPS driver & @MAStateLottery #HeroAMongUs went above and beyond. He saved a family from a home fire. pic.twitter.com/VXpDPCLpXv — Boston Celtics (@celtics) May 3, 2017
MANCHESTER, N.H. — A UPS driver who doused a house fire with a garden hose last month was lauded May 2 at the Boston Celtics playoff game, one of the many honors the Manchester resident has recently received.
Paul Pereira, 44, was on the last delivery on April 10 in Haverhill, Mass., when he saw a strange glow from a house.
He banged on the door of the house, he said, alerting the two residents. He eventually took a hose to the fire, which had spread from a whicker table to the exeterior wall of the porch. A video taken by a neighbor shows Pereira asking if a resident’s mother is in the house, then standing beside the fire and extinguishing it.
UPS ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
“I did my best. When I was doing it, I didn’t think it was a big deal. Then I saw the video,” Pereira said.
The video can be viewed below:
The Boston Celtics think it’s a big deal. Pereira was to be honored during the second quarter of the May 2 playoff game at TD Garden. The Celtics use their Heroes Among Us program to recognize heroic achievements of New Englanders.
Pereira, who spoke to the New Hampshire Union Leader, said the Celtics had scheduled a car service and provided four tickets to the game.
He has been with UPS for 22 years; a driver for 17 years.
When he saw the fire, he started banging on the door. Tracy Lavender and her daughter, Emily, 20, were unaware of the fire, he said.
Pereira said he asked for a garden hose, and Lavender retrieved the hose from a shed. He hooked it up. Video shows a fire engine pulling up once the flames are extinguished.
Pereira said he gets a lot of ribbing from friends, co-workers, even his two teenaged children. Both his employer and the Haverhill Fire Department have officially recognized his actions.
“Everyone wants to say I’m a hero,” he said. “I just did what anyone else would do.”
