CANTON, Ohio -- Although he doesn't consider himself a hero, a Canton mail carrier is certainly seen that way by a family whose lives he may have saved after he detected potentially deadly fumes, reported NewsChannel5.

Last week, Brandon Reed was working his mail route when he said he smelled gas coming from a home.

"I couldn't tell which house it was coming from so I knocked on both doors. No one was in the house," Reed said.

So the mailman told a gas crew about the smell that was coming from a vent out of John White's home.

The crew discovered that carbon monoxide was coming from the home's furnace.

"It makes me feel blessed that our mailman had the sense to say, 'Hey something's wrong here and it needs to be checked out,'" said White.

But Reed said he doesn't consider himself a hero.

"I don't know about that. I didn't pull anyone from a burning building, but if I prevented something terrible from happening, that's great," he said.

This isn't the first time Reed carried out a heroic act, NewsChannel5 reported.

"I noticed a dog from a house on my route a couple of blocks away and I knew it was old he didn't know where he was so I picked him up and walked him home," Reed said.

White is very grateful to Reed and he's taking the postal worker out to dinner as a thank-you.

"I have a pregnant wife, one 4-year-old daughter. It's just a situation by the grace of God we're here today, and I owe it all to the mailman," White said.