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[Pligganease]

Postman hailed for effort to save boy
He jumped fence, kept pit bulls at bay

By JAY PRICE, Staff Writer
The News and Observer

Becoming a hero came with a price for Michael Redice.
"You can relive it in your mind every day and every night," he said, then he paused a second. "A child. A child."

The 50-year-old Charlotte postal worker has to live with the horrific vision of an 8-year-old boy being all but eaten by four pit bulls -- and with the knowledge that the boy later died anyway, despite Redice jumping a fence, armed only with a stick and his postal bag to hold off the dogs.

He also had to give up the mail carrier job he had wanted since he was a child himself. Working outdoors means seeing dogs and hearing children calling out as they play, and he just can't take it.

He even got a death threat, from the boy's drug-dealer father, of all people.

A commission funded by the Carnegie fortune announced Thursday that Redice is officially a hero. They're giving him a medal and $3,500. Redice said it's an honor to join the other 8,942 people that the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission has cited since 1904 for risking their lives while saving or trying to save others.

But he rejects the word "hero." Overused, inflated, doesn't apply here, he said.

"I hope anyone would have scaled that fence to help an 8-year-old child," Redice said. "How can you consider yourself a hero if this is something we should all do?"

Redice was walking his rounds in west Charlotte on April 16, 2004. A few houses short of his lunch break, he stopped to greet a retired couple who often sat on their porch. As they talked, he heard what sounded like a child screaming.

The couple didn't hear it, and the noise was faint and appeared to be moving. Redice thinks that was because Roddie P. Dumas Jr. was running from the dogs.

Redice finally got a fix on the noise, dashed across the street and looked into the fenced back yard.

He doesn't quite have words for what he saw, what he still sees.

"They were doing a, uh, thorough job on him," Redice said.

Redice tossed his mailbag over the fence to distract the dogs, then picked up the biggest stick he could find and scrambled over the fence.

"Stop!" he shouted, brandishing the stick, "Stop!"

Three of the blood-soaked dogs scattered, but one on a sliding chain attached to a clothesline just moved away and lay down, watching.

Redice kept an eye on that dog, staying between him and the boy, and began to talk to the boy, who had lost a lot of blood from wounds to his throat, torso and leg.

"He didn't respond verbally, but I saw it in his eyes, that he saw someone was there for him," Redice said.

Redice held off the dogs until firefighters arrived. He's not sure how long that took, but it felt like "all day," he said.

The firefighters moved the boy outside the fence and started treating him.

The boy's father, Roddie Dumas Sr., and the man's girlfriend were home. They didn't come outside until after the attack was over.

Redice, distraught, demanded to know why Dumas hadn't heard his son's screams.

"You got to be blind, dumb or stupid," Redice said.

Dumas pointed a finger at him, pistol style, and threatened to kill him.

In a search after the attack, police found drugs and weapons in Dumas' house. Later that year, Dumas pleaded guilty in federal court to possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and possession of firearms and ammunition by a convicted felon. In a second trial, he was convicted of interfering with a U.S. letter carrier -- Redice -- and using and carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking crime.

In one of the trials, Redice broke down on the witness stand as he described the dog attack, according to The Associated Press.

After the attack, Redice took time off from work and sought counseling. Later, he tried not to talk about it with co-workers or family. "It brought back bad memories," he said.

Now Redice works as a clerk in a Charlotte post office. He doesn't want to say which one because of Dumas' threat.

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Only in America would a man receive a death threat after risking his life to save the other man's son... I come from a sick country. I know it. But, I still love it.