Dachshund Pulls 200 Pound Man From Burning Home
This tear-jerking, inspiring story involves one of our (minor and relatively insignificant) employees, Delwood Morris, a forklift driver in our Boca Raton warehouse. After work on Tuesday evening, Morris was watching professional wrestling on television while drinking his seventh beer. His dachshund, Delwood Junior, was asleep on the front porch.
Delwood Morris’ friend, Maynard Wilkins, also with the warehouse staff, drove himself home, wiping out every mailbox on the block and getting his pickup truck stuck in a drainage ditch. He tried to walk the rest of the way, then, according to Boca police sergeant Ernesto Riviera, fell into a rosebush. He awoke twenty minutes later and tried to call Delwood for help, but received no answer. Delwood Morris had by this time, according to police, passed out on his couch with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
Thirty minutes later, Delwood Morris’ two-bedroom home by the railroad tracks was on fire. A neighbor said the blaze could be seen a block away and told police, “Me and my husband would’ve called the fire department sooner, but, as I said, there was one more wrestling match to go. We was all watching it — Big Ernie Pile against The Mad Russian, Andre Karkosova. Pile used his elbow and both teeth to break a stranglehold and, Jesus help me, we seen the fire blazing but couldn’t get our eyes off that television screen.”
One neighbor tried to put out the fire with a case of beer and another with a garden hose that, it turns out, was not connected to the spigot. Finally, with Delwood Morris stuck between his sofa and his rifle rack, his dog, Delwood Junior ran back into the house and pulled the 200-pound Morris out onto the street where firefighters worked for a half hour to unfasten his suspenders.
Delwood is recovering in Mount Sinai Hospital and said, “I just love that dog, Delwood Junior. I loved my daddy too, which is the reason why I named him after my daddy. He’s a little feller but stronger than you know. Dachshunds are like that.” Holding back tears, Delwood continued, “For him to have pulled my lifeless body out from the burning embers and into the road is the kind of stuff heroes is made of. I guess you might say I am like the Lord Jesus for I have returned to this world to depart my story. When I leave this hospital me and Delwood’s gonna take to the road and tell our story on television and whatnot.”