Dog saves man from burning trailer

POWELL -- Reynaldo “Rey” Adame woke up Tuesday morning when his dog jumped on him.
That’s not unusual; but anything ordinary about the morning vanished when Adame, of Powell, realized his mobile home was on fire.
“When I woke up, I was sitting on top of the fire,” Adame said Wednesday.
Adame had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, the warmest room of his home, during the bitter-cold night. When his dog, Blue, woke him up at 6:55, flames were licking at the couch from underneath.
“Everything was full of smoke,” Adame said. “I pulled the couch back to see where it was burning. But I couldn’t see anything — just the fire.”
That was when he ran outside, barefoot, in the sub-zero, pre-dawn weather.
“When I opened the door, it went — whoo! — and everything popped into flames,” Adame said, blowing a gust of air with his mouth in imitation of the sound. “I closed the door, because I saw the flames coming after me.”
Windows in the mobile home began breaking, letting in additional oxygen to further fuel the inferno.
“My dog was still there, so I opened the door again, and the fire was just growing. I couldn’t find my dog,” Adame said. “The trash man was there, and he was like, ‘Get away! Get away! Get away from the house!’
“I ran to him, and asked him to call the fire department. I couldn’t call; everything of mine burned — wallet, papers, phone.”
Then Adame ran to the rear of the trailer and threw open the back door, knocking it off its hinges. His terrified dog ran to the door and jumped out to join his master, equally frightened.
Later, a neighbor gave Adame a pair of shoes to give his feet some protection from the frozen ground, and a crew from Powell Valley Hospital took him into an ambulance.
Adame’s niece, Janelly Rios, lives with her family in the neighboring mobile home to the east of Adame’s in Triangle Mobile Home Park, located between South and Adams streets near Ferris Street.
Rios and her husband, Juan, were wakened shortly after 7 a.m. by a loud banging on their front door.
“It was the police,” she said. “They yelled, ‘Wake up, wake up! You need to get out! The trailer next door is on fire!’”
They ran with their 3-year-old son to Rios’ mother’s home on the other side of the block. Her mother, Maria Adame, is Rey Adame’s sister and they all worried about whether Rey Adame had been able to escape the flaming trailer. However, they couldn’t get past the roadblock to find out if he’d been seen. They learned later that he had been taken to Powell Valley Hospital, where he was kept overnight for treatment of smoke inhalation.
Rey Adame said he’s thankful to be alive.
“Everything else can be replaced,” he said. “The thing is, I have no place. I lost everything. But I’ve got a job, and my brother’s my boss. That’s the good thing.”
Maria Adame said she has faith that her brother will overcome this trial, as he has others in the past.
“He’s a hard worker. He works every day,” she said.
Several years ago, Rey Adame fell from about 10 feet and hit his head. He was in a coma for 10 days, and the resulting brain injury caused him to lose much of his hearing as well as his senses of smell and taste, Maria Adame said.
Blue, his dog, helps him by keeping him company, waking him up in the mornings and letting him know when someone is at the door.
Now, he can add lifesaving to the list of Blue’s accomplishments.