{"id":620262,"date":"2026-10-04T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T10:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/620262\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T10:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T10:58:10","slug":"gisborne-house-fire-mystery-hero-tim-morris-comes-forward-after-rescuing-elderly-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/620262\/","title":{"rendered":"Gisborne house fire: \u2018Mystery hero\u2019 Tim Morris comes forward after rescuing elderly man"},"content":{"rendered":"
Senior station officer Tim Lister told the Gisborne Herald the interior of the house was \u201csignificantly damaged\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe elderly man who lived there was taken to hospital by ambulance, suffering from moderate smoke inhalation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA passerby saw the fire, broke a window and hauled the man out to safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe probably saved his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police issued a public appeal yesterday in the hope of tracking down the mystery rescuer.<\/p>\n
Morris\u2019 friend showed him the appeal, and this morning, much to the delight of officers, he walked into the police station.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to get him out,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a bit emotional. At the end of the day, helping people makes me feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim Morris broke the window in this picture to get to an elderly man inside the burning house. Photo \/ Murray Robertson<\/p>\n
In their statement tonight, police announced that the \u201cmystery hero\u201d had answered their call out.<\/p>\n
Detective Senior Sergeant John Love said Morris had not wanted to make a fuss when he arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that tells you quite a lot about the person who walked through our doors today,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put out an appeal because we wanted to find him, not because he was in any trouble. We wanted the opportunity to shake his hand and say \u2018thank you\u2019. We got that opportunity today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love said Morris might not consider himself a hero, but his quick actions had helped the elderly resident escape a life-threatening situation.<\/p>\n
Police confirmed the 89-year-old was recuperating well in hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior station officer Tim Lister told the Gisborne Herald the interior of the house was \u201csignificantly damaged\u201d. \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,6375,8615,8608,77435,15453,2079,19134,71,12506,12811,10053,424,5158,86226,8732,111,43,139,69,675,10902,39025,10710,12128,46001],"class_list":["post-620262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-appeal","tag-come","tag-comes","tag-earlymorning","tag-elderly","tag-fire","tag-forward","tag-from","tag-gisborne","tag-hero","tag-house","tag-life","tag-man","tag-morris","tag-mystery","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-pulling","tag-rescuing","tag-resident","tag-risked","tag-tim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}