Marc Ducote was Just Riding Along when he saved a life

Marc Ducote NOLA.COM
Marc Ducote with the woman he saved from a burning home.

Marc Ducote owns Bicycle World in Jefferson Louisiana.

He was Just Riding Along his usual route on the Mississippi River levee dressed in full roadie kit when he saw smoke, and then fire. He rode down to investigate and saw a dump truck had hit a trailer home and knocked it clean off of its foundation.

“There’s nobody there, and I’m wondering if anybody’s inside when I hear screaming,” Marc tells me, still high on adreneline from this morning’s rescue. “I run over, well, no, I don’t run, I waddle to the door because I’m in my f****** cycling shoes. I try to break the door down but the truck shifted the whole trailer so I can’t open the door. I tell the lady inside to get the f*** out of the way and I throw a forty, fifty pound chunk of concrete through the door.”

“Don’t make this a big deal,” he tells me. “I’m no hero. I’m just in the right place at the right time. I saw the house on fire, there’s not even a thought about it — you just do what you gotta do.”

Ducote went back in to save the German Shepherd inside the trailer home but had to turn back. “I got two feet in and starting breathing smoke. It’s a trailer, you know, so it’s going up like fireworks. I broke out all of the windows hoping the dog can escape but he didn’t make it.”

NOLA reports a dump truck crashed into the home after it clipped a pickup truck on River Road at Maine Street because the “driver was having a hard time seeing the traffic.” He careened out of control through two front yards before hitting the home.

In this video interview, the woman’s boyfriend expresses his gratitude to Marc for saving her life.



Ducote doesn’t use Strava – I would have loved to have seen his GPS track from today’s ride.

4 Comments

  1. “I’m no hero. I’m just in the right place at the right time. I saw the house on fire, there’s not even a thought about it — you just do what you gotta do.”

    Dude, hate to tell you, but that is the definition of “hero”.

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