Letter carrier hailed as hero
USPS worker who saved two men from a house fire to be honored.
The old saying about mail carriers is that rain or snow or the gloom of night won’t deter them from making deliveries.
It doesn’t mention smoke or fire. But U.S. Postal Service letter carrier John Sylvain didn’t let a blaze that engulfed a Margate house stop him from saving the two men who lived there.
And for his brave actions that put him in a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, Sylvain’s union will honor him in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday as a ‘National Hero of the Year.’
“I really don’t want the recognition,” Sylvain, 30, of Fort Lauderdale, said Friday. “I believe I was just in the right place at the right time.”
On April 12 in the 5800 block of Park Drive in Margate, Sylvain was delivering mail to the Broward County library.
“A neighbor came and banged on my truck and said they needed my help,” Sylvain said.
He noticed at the house across the street, an elderly tenant who normally greeted him each morning wasn’t outside. And worse, “a lot of smoke was coming from the top and the side door [of the home],” Sylvain said.
When Sylvain got halfway into the house, he saw the older man and brought him outside. The owner ran out the front door, he said.
“A neighbor gave me a fire extinguisher,” Sylvain said, but the fire was too strong. And the homeowner’s two dogs were still inside.
Aerial footage of the fire taken
by WSVN-Ch. 7 showed flames and black smoke pouring through the roof of the single-story home.
“Once I got into the living room, the smoke overtook me,” Sylvain said. “I dropped to the floor and crawled to the front door.”
The two dogs died in the fire. City workers brought Sylvain across the street from the property as he struggled to breathe.
Firefighters took him to an emergency room, where he received treatment and rested for a few hours.
Sylvain said he was thankful for the care he received from paramedics, and knows his injuries could have been worse.
“They treated a fireman there, too, who got burned on the back of his neck and ears,” Sylvain said.
Margate-Coconut Creek Fire Rescue Fire Chief Dan Booker
said of Sylvain, “He represents the best of us. He was Johnny-on-the-spot. He was familiar with the residents there and knew there was more than one person inside.”
Sylvain served five years in the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Okla., training in field artillery and was a specialist when he was medically discharged, he said.
Booker said Sylvain drew upon that discipline and attitude of public service on the day of the fire.
“He served in the military and those are the people who step up,” Booker said. “You don’t see the average Joe go into a burning building. He put himself at risk to save someone else’s life.”
Sylvain graduated Miami Northwestern Senior High and attended a year of college, he said. He has a daughter, Jaidah, 10, and is engaged to a postal service supervisor, Tesha Berrian, 39.
“She’s bossing me basically at home and at work,” Sylvain said,
laughing. “Someone already told me, ‘happy wife, happy life.’”
He planned to travel to Washington, D.C. on Monday and spend a few days there, seeing the sights.
At Wednesday’s luncheon, the National Association of Letter Carriers also will recognize nine other letter carriers and retired employees from around the country for their selfless actions.
Those good deeds included stopping an assault and a burglary; saving a baby and diving into a runaway Jeep and halting it near a school zone when its driver was unconscious, the union said.
Another Florida letter carrier — Jason Moss, of Tampa — also saved lives during a house fire and is also being honored as a National Hero of the Year by the union, one of four that represents post office employees.
Before becoming a mail carrier, Sylvain worked two years as an armored truck driver and guard. Since joining the Postal Service in
2015, his routes have included Pompano Beach, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach and lately, Margate.
“I just want to say thank you to all the letter carriers that taught me to be a good letter carrier,” Sylvain said. “And to all the people in my life who taught me how to do things right, and gave me good and positive advice so that I could be the person that I am today.”
A month after the fire, the city of Margate recognized Sylvain, too.
“God placed me there to help someone,” Sylvain said after he finished up his shift late on Friday afternoon. “I was just happy to help someone else. If someone else can pay it forward, there would be more kindness and kind acts happening in the world, instead of violence and hate.”