An elderly woman is still in critical condition three days after spending about 40 minutes trapped by a fire at her Valletta home.

“She suffered burns and is sedated. The main damage is to her lungs. She took in a lot of smoke,” her sister, Monica, 66, said.

The fire began in a ground floor tailor’s shop, called Rodex, which is on the corner of Old Bakery Street and St Lucia Street at about 6am on Saturday.

“We were both asleep when the fire started. The alarm went off so I went downstairs to the shop and saw a little fire in the false ceiling,” Monica Muscat said.

Unable to put out the flames herself, she covered her mouth with her robe, unlocked the shop’s shutter  and dashed to the police station to seek help.

“We could not get to her. Even when the firemen arrived they couldn’t get to her (at first) because they only had ladders and she was on the third floor,” she said.

They eventually managed to rescue her after forcing their way into the apartment, finding her on the floor near a bed. She was given first aid on site and transferred to Mater Dei Hospital.