The plumber hailed a hero

A plumber on his way home to change into dry clothes after repairing a faulty water pipe became a hero when he charged into an inferno to save a woman overcome by smoke.

The incident occurred last Thursday but details on the heroic act only emerged over the weekend.

Teddy Mifsud, 57, drove into Triq is-Sajjieda, Mellieħa shortly after midnight and saw thick smoke billowing from his neighbours' garage, which had been converted into an apartment.

"I was fixing the plumbing at the resort (he works in). A water pipe burst and showered me with water, so I drove home to change into dry clothes and would have returned. But when I arrived, my neighbours were assembled outside and one of them told me she had heard the young woman who lives there screaming for help half an hour earlier," he recalled.

Mr Mifsud called on his neighbours to inform the garage owners who worked at a nearby restaurant but when they arrived they could not open the door because the key was in the lock on the inside.

"I charged the door and one of the fly screens gave way. I put my hand in and turned the key. When I walked inside, I could tell that the smoke came from an electrical fire and because I could make out the light of a lampshade, I turned off the garage's electricity".

But the smoke was too thick and he could not crawl inside, even though the neighbours shone a car's headlamps.

Mr Mifsud, who occasionally took part in fire drills on the job, remembered a gas mask he used when applying chlorine to pools and ran inside his house to fetch it. He put it on and ran into the garage.

His son, Neil, 22, stirred from his sleep when his father ran inside so he followed him, still in his underwear: "I heard a woman shout but because we live next to the bay and often hear people shouting I did not give it any weight."

He rushed back home to get a pair of shorts and a neighbour threw him a wet towel from her balcony. He wrapped it around his head and followed his father into the smoke.

His father was slowly making his way through the garage when he stumbled on something: "The smoke was so thick I couldn't even see my own hands so I bent down to get a closer look. It was the woman. I held her hand and asked her if she could hear me. She held my hand.

"Since she's six feet tall and was barely conscious I couldn't carry her so I started pulling her towards the doorway while my son pulled me," he added.

When father and son approached the door, two neighbours, one of them the woman's uncle, helped them carry her to the pavement, where they laid the 27-year-old woman, who neighbours know by the name of Rebecca, down.

By pure coincidence, Mario Scerri, a forensic doctor, happened to be driving by and stopped to administer first aid. A police car arrived shortly afterwards, followed by a fire engine and an ambulance.

The woman was taken to hospital, where she was kept for a few days to recover from the smoke she had inhaled. She has told her family she would like to meet "Teddy".

The three people who went into the apartment were also treated for smoke inhalation. Mr Mifsud did not require any treatment as he had worn the gas mask.