Baldwin EMC Honors Employee's Heroic Actions
February 24, 2010
Troy Thompson (left) receives the Baldwin EMC / Touchstone Energy Power and Hope Award from Karen Moore, vice-president of member services and public relations for the cooperative.
One local family is calling Baldwin EMC employee Troy Thompson a guardian angel. On Monday, February 15, Baldwin EMC called Thompson a hero, and officially recognized him with the Baldwin EMC / Touchstone Energy Power and Hope Award.
It was quick thinking and persistence that earned Thompson the recognition. In the early morning hours of January 8, he was carrying out his normal route delivering papers for the Mobile Press-Register when he came across a fire in the Lake Forest subdivision of Daphne. An electrical malfunction had ignited a shed behind the home where Christopher Parker and his wife Erica were sound asleep, unaware of the fire quickly spreading to their house.
When Thompson arrived, he says he stopped his route, called 911 and began banging on the front door of the home hoping to alert the family and prompt them to leave the house. Even though he didn't get a response at first, Thompson says he kept knocking until he was able to wake the couple and warn them of the danger. Afterwards, Thompson picked up a garden hose and helped keep the surrounding area wet to prevent the fire from spreading until emergency responders arrived.
Christopher Parker's mother Ginger, who owns the house involved in the fire, says she is eternally grateful to Troy for going above and beyond the call of duty. "Instead of having to replace a shed, I may be in a funeral home picking out caskets for my son and daughter-in-law," she said. "I can replace the house. I can't replace my children." The family taped a special message thanking Thompson for his actions, which was played during the award presentation at Baldwin EMC's all-employee training day on Monday, February 15.
E.A. "Bucky" Jakins, Jr., Baldwin EMC's chief executive officer, says he feels Thompson was very deserving of the cooperative's Power and Hope Award. "Even though Troy has remained very humble about what he did, he's earned every bit of the recognition he received. He is someone we value as an employee and admire as a person." Thompson is Baldwin EMC's sixth Power and Hope recipient since the award's creation in 2005.