We’ve all been there on a Friday night, you’re chilling in your caravan after a long and exhausting week of being unemployed, a fat blunt funded by the tax payer in your mouth and some culinary excellence courtesy of your camping stove sitting warmly in your stomach. Your eyelids droop with sheer content as you nod off, blissfully unaware that your lit joint has now fallen from between your lips and is in the process of setting ablaze to your cardboard box of a home and the 7 possessions that you hold to your name. Well, maybe not all of us, but that would suck right?
What would suck even more is if you, unlike me, were sufficiently wealthy enough to own a caravan out of choice rather than as a genuine place to live (joking, I’m a writer obviously I can’t afford a caravan, I’m homeless), and that caravan was set alight in an arson attack. As if that wouldn’t be shitty enough, that fire then spreads to your actual home and that turns to ashes with you and your family getting roasted alive inside. Well, this scenario very nearly unfolded for a family from Derby, until their top bossman of a dog Simba alerted them to the inferno consuming their beloved past time just inches from their house.
Upon hearing his dog barking emphatically downstairs, Paul Licence got out of bed where he had been sleeping with his partner, Sue, and went down to investigate. Whilst trying to calm the dog, Paul noticed the fire and quickly gathered his wife and grandchildren who had also been sleeping, and they fled the property. Sue said of the incident:
Simba was amazing — he’s our hero. He was barking and banging his paws on the sofa and getting really agitated, which is unusual for him as he’s not really a barky dog. At first Paul was trying to calm him down as he didn’t understand why he was making such a fuss. Then we opened the curtains and we just saw all the flames. If it wasn’t for Simba we’d be dead.
Firefighters arrived on the scene in time to prevent any serious damage to the families home, although the property still sustained some minor cosmetic wear – with charred walls being a small price to pay for such a lucky escape. However, the caravan was predictably long gone. Paul and Sue’s neighbours also owe a lot to Simba, their house sustained cracked windows from the heat of the fire and part of their car was melted, but it could have been a lot worse had the dog not raised the alarm. What a legend.
This guy is like the real life Underdog, spending his days doing good and saving lives. Meanwhile, this guys out tripping balls, I guess every species has its coasters and its achievers.
