Mailman becomes a true hero

Until April 6, 2009, Perry Bland was simply known as "the mailman" to Katie Purdom.

Stevie L. Daugherty

Pictured, from left, is Katie Purdom, her four-year-old daughter Victoria and their mailman Perry Bland. Bland saved Purdom and her daughter from drowning in a creek along Arbuckle Creek Road after their vehicle wrecked and overturned on April 6. Purdom a

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But, on that cold spring day as she and her four-year-old daughter drove home on Arbuckle Creek Road, Bland would become much more than a mail man to Purdom and her family.

He became their hero.

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