The AP reports Man Falling Off Ladder Is Really Dummy:
GIBBON, Neb. - A sheriff's officer and other residents have tried to save a man falling off a ladder as he hangs Christmas lights.
Please don't, said Cathy Pierce, who lives at the house where all the ruckus is about. It's a dummy she made using the old coveralls, boots and gloves of her husband, George.
"It is really neat to see so many good people wanting to do the right thing," she said. "He really does look real."
The couple have hung the dummy up every year for 10 years. He appears to be hanging from the roof with half a string of lights up and the other half trailing to the ground. A ladder looks as if it has fallen to the side.
Buffalo County Community Service Officer Clint Kirschner was on patrol in Gibbon when he saw what he thought was a man falling and ran to save him.
"I feel so bad for him," Pierce said. "We used to call the sheriff's department every year when we put him up so they would know what was happening if they got a 911 call, but we figured after 10 years, they would know."
Kirschner is by far not the only person who has tried to save the dummy. Pierce said almost two or three times a day, there is a knock on her door telling her that the man hanging lights needs help. Sometimes someone will just set the ladder back up.
Pierce said if it gets really icy they take the dummy down so no one gets hurt trying to help him.
"Some people get mad and shake their fist at the house if they've been fooled," she said. "Others sit down in the yard laughing so hard."
She said sometimes youngsters are so worried their parents stop and show them that it is not a real person.
Most neighbors enjoy the joke and start asking about the dummy at about Halloween.
"My husband says he doesn't dare fall in the yard. No one would stop to help, they'd all think it was the dummy," Pierce said with a laugh.
