Elroy Cowley helped to rescue Wesley E. Schroeder from burning, Portland, Oregon, May 17, 1980. Schroeder, 29, was asleep when fire spread through his house. Another man had attempted to remove him but was unsuccessful. The other man alerted Cowley, 58, postal employee; Cowley entered the house through a back room but breathed smoke and was forced to leave. Cowley and the other man then crawled through the smoke-filled room, and despite increasing flames and smoke, freed Schroeder, who was lying unconscious under debris, and carried him from the house. Schroeder was hospitalized with extensive burns.
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