By Mark Sommer
The Buffalo News
TONAWANDA, N.Y. — Mail carriers, it’s long been said, deliver more than mail.
Mailman Thomas Matuszek is a testament to that familiar adage.
Several years ago, while on his route, he rushed into a parked car after the gear shift slipped, putting it into park as the owner making a repair dangled from the car door.
And last Monday, Matuszek had another unexpected encounter while walking his route in the Town of Tonawanda. This time, he may have saved an elderly woman’s life.
It occurred after a fire broke out in Adele Stokes’ kitchen on Coventry Road. She had left a plastic cutting board on a heated burner, which quickly filled her small apartment with thick smoke.
“I just thank God I was there,” Matuszek said. “It happened so fast that there was no time to really think. You just had to do things instinctively.”
“Without him, I wouldn’t be here with you,” the 84-year-old Stokes said. “He was the perfect person to have at [my] side. He did all the right things.”
The fire happened on a typical shift during which he delivers mail to 518 residents. Matuszek smelled smoke, ran past a couple of houses and heard the faint sound of a woman yelling, “Help! Fire!” from a small apartment building.
He dropped his bulky mail satchel, ran inside and found Stokes in the kitchen trying to dash 2- to 3-foot-high flames. Grabbing what looked to be a piece of asbestos from her hand, Matuszek also tried, without success, to quickly halt the fire.
So, he called 911, and then stepped into the hallway yelling, “Everybody out! “
“I thought, I have to get these people out of there, and that’s what I did,” Matuszek said.
There was one other person home in the four-unit apartment building, who quickly fled. Stokes was reluctant to leave, so Matuszek carried her out.
He then ran back into the apartment to make sure the burners on the stove were turned off in case it was a gas stove (it was electric) to avert an explosion.
A contingent from a Tonawanda volunteer fire department, located a short distance away, arrived in a couple of minutes and extinguished the fire before any serious damage occurred, Matuszek said.
A fire department official visited Matuszek’s superior that afternoon to tell her that, without Matuszek’s action, the outcome could have been far worse.
Stokes now knows that, too.
“I know as well as anybody to call the fire department, but it wasn’t in me to do it,” Stokes said. “I’m like, I can’t let them know this is happening to me. I wasn’t thinking that straight that I should get out of here.”
Matuszek downplayed his actions, but Patricia Pughakoff, manager of the Northside postal facility, would have none of it.
“He is definitely a true hero in my eyes It is so nice to know that Thomas Matuszek represented the U.S. Postal Service in the utmost professional way, and we are very proud to have him on our team,” she said.
Matuszek dismissed the notion that he is a hero.
“It certainly doesn’t make me a hero — it makes me attentive, and I enjoy helping people. I just hope someone would do the same for my family,” Matuszek said.
Bob MacLennon, president of the Letter Carriers Union, praised Matuszek’s action and said it’s no exaggeration to say it’s all in a day’s work for mail carriers.
“We don’t get much publicity for this, but virtually every week there is a carrier to help some kid in trouble, or an elderly person who falls down and needs help,” he said. “There are many times where carriers see something wrong and notify the police.”
Mail carriers have suggested not having them in neighborhoods on Saturdays will be one of the fallouts if, as is being considered, mail delivery is reduced from six days to five to help reduce the postal service’s deficit.
Stokes, who now has a new stove, said she will forever be grateful to her mailman.
“I went down yesterday when I knew he was coming in and I said, ‘Hi, you’re not rid of me. You’re with me forever.’”
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