GROW. RISE. TOGETHER.
The Postal Record 57 August 2024 After 21 years on the job, Tim- mye Crowley knows her customers well. On her route on a cold, icy evening in Billings, MT, in Novem- ber 2022, Crowley got out of her vehicle on her mounted route to bring an elderly customer’s mail to his door so he wouldn’t have to come to his box in the bad weath- er. When she reached the door, the Billings Branch 815 member heard the man’s smoke detector beeping. Looking in the window, Crowley spotted the man asleep in a chair despite the beeping and the smoke filling the room. She knew he was hard of hearing and the smoke alarm wasn’t wak- ing him. “I started pounding on the door, kicking it and ringing the doorbell,” she said. The man finally woke up and came to the door, still unaware of the fire. “He had no idea what was going on.” Crowley called 911 and brought the man to safety. “I got him out- side, away from the smoke,” she said. At the door, she noticed the fire was simply a plug-in cooking appliance with burning food in- side, so she went inside and un- plugged it. After the fire depart- ment arrived, Crowley returned to her route. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines of Montana later honored Crowley for her actions. “I didn’t feel like a hero,” Crowley said. “I feel like I was just doing my job. To thank Fields for helping to save his life, Coffin had him over for dinner. “The emotions were incred- ible,” Fields said, “as we relived ev- ery moment for a solid two hours.” As for being called heroic, Fields said, “It took me a long while to re- alize that I am a hero. I initially just thought it was something that ev- eryone would do for another human being.” Honorable Mention Timmye Crowley of Billings, MT Branch 815
Central Region Hero Dominic Jack of Baton Rouge, LA Branch 129 On his route in White Castle, LA, earlier this year, Dominic Jack had just delivered to a house at the end of a loop and was circling back when he saw trouble. “I saw gray smoke coming from the back of the house,” he said. The two year carrier, a member of Baton Rouge Branch 129, knew there were children living in the house, so he rushed to help. “I could hear somebody scream- ing,” he said. He saw a small boy in the back yard, afraid to move. He coaxed the boy to come to him to reach safety. Jack then encountered a teenage girl at the front and con- vinced her not to go back inside to retrieve her phone. He went through the back door of the burn- ing house to rescue the children’s grandmother, who he found near the door, and helped her to the street. When he was sure all four chil- dren and the grandmother were safe, Jack went to the next-door neighbor’s home to warn them be- cause he knew there were elderly people living there, and then alert- ed the neighbors on the other side. The house on fire was completely engulfed by the flames, but the others were not harmed—but more importantly, nobody was killed or injured. “Due to the quick thinking of this carrier we, and several of our neighbors, were able to get out of our houses safely and before the firefighters had arrived on the scene,” one elderly neighbor wrote to the post office. “Carrier Dominic is definitely an asset to the Postal Service and the com- munity!” “It was just an instant reaction,” Jack said of his heroic efforts. “I just did what I would do any day.”
Western Region Hero Randall “Randy” Fields of Boulder, CO Branch 642
Randy Fields was in the Valmont Post Office in Boulder, CO, on a July morning when disaster struck. “I heard a big crash and saw glass exploding into the post of- fice,” he said. A car had crashed into the building. He ran toward it and watched as the driver tried to back out, then move forward, then back out again. As other co-workers tried to stop the woman from mov- ing the car, Fields heard someone moaning in pain. “I turned the corner and saw a man on all fours,” the Boulder Branch 642 member said. “Blood was pulsating from a wound on his left arm.” The car had struck him and pinned him to a counter. The man, he later learned, was a postal customer named William Coffin. Fields, who has carried the mail since 2005, took off his belt and used it as a tourniquet with the help of a postal customer. They managed to stop the bleeding, but Coffin had lost a large amount of blood already and was slipping in and out of con- sciousness, so they talked to him to try to keep him awake. “I was scared he was going to die,” Fields said. Coffin was seriously injured and when EMTs arrived, they took him to the hospital. Fields and his co- workers managed to go out on their routes that day. Police said charges are pending against the driver. Coffin survived and eventually returned home from the hospital. “Mr. Coffin sustained a whole list of injuries,” Field added, including “a lacerated artery in his left arm, 16 broken ribs, fractured tibia sepa- rated from his knee, both ACLs and MCLs torn in both knees, a shat- tered pelvis, collapsed lung and dislocated shoulder.” Coffin will have to undergo more surgeries and rehabilitation before he is fully recovered.
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