A local mail carrier is being hailed as a hero as he saved an elderly man from a burning home Friday in Yorktown Heights.

Chris Perez, with four years at the U.S. Postal Service, was delivering mail at Jefferson Valley Senior Living when he saw flames and smoke. “A lot of the folks there were running, panicking and they said, Chris, there’s somebody inside the house!” he said. He urged the confused man out, saying, “You need to get out the house!” despite the man’s delay for his phone and keys.

“I ran to the front of the house and it was horrific, the entire front of the house was engulfed in flames. It was very hot and my beard, which I had yesterday, just started to turn from the heat. It was impossible for me to get through that door, it was so much flames,” says Perez.

He used his mail truck, saying, “I put it underneath the back patio, and got him off the patio onto the mail truck itself.”

Both escaped safely. “Honestly, at the end of the day, I feel like I did what any other human being would do,” Perez added.