A giant stuffed animal saved my life - literally. Back in 08' I was a fireman in a small town in south carolina. In rural areas you don't see that much action as a fireman, but the few times that you are needed, it's usually extreme. This one old lady lived by herself out in a ranch raising little animals to profit - she also wasn't too technologically inclined. I'm not sure how the fire started, though the police say it was a fuel leak because of her incompetence, I think she was just being clumsy and set her place in an inferno.

I remember the scene so vividly it's haunting. The entire place was blazing and the fire was spreading to the fields because of the wind - that's our worst enemy. We tried saving the old lady but apparently she had already fled the scene. It's too bad nobody told me that. I went in there looking for her with my partner Randy - you never go in a burning building alone, and I'll tell ya why. The god damn ceiling was comin' down, along with all the burning furniture above us. For our own safety, we had to abort the mission, but I didn't make it out like Randy - I got trapped in the collapsing house. Man, what an experience. Even though I've been in burning buildings there's nothing ever more frightening than being in the middle of a collapsing building. The worst part - A block of wood struck me in the collar bone, causing me to fall in pain. I blacked out shortly afterwards.

Next thing I know, I'm waking up soaking wet underneath some kind of crushing soft force. I hear the sound of other firemen approaching, and as I regain my senses, I realize that there are men lifting a giant stuffed animal off me! Yea! That's right, the old lady had one of those huge 6 foot stuffed animals in the attic and it ended up landing on me in the middle of all that chaos. Randy later told me that if that thing didn't land on me, I was sure to have burned up in there. For some reason, the stuffed animal didn't entirely burn, and the entire underside looked brand new. What a miracle that was. I retired from the force after that incident. Oh yea, and the old lady who evaded the fire ended up tripping on a pebble while running away and fractured her frontal lobe. Barely able to survive, she was then bit by a poisonous snake and died.