The police this evening issued an account by the officers involved in the rescue of a grandmother and her grandson from a house on fire in Sliema yesterday.

The officers were PC 131 Nathan Bugeja and PC 159 Glen Calleja from the Rapid Intervention Unit and PC 1258 Carmel Debattista from Sliema Police Station 

PC 131 explained how they arrived at the scene together with the first fire engine and two firemen from the Civil Protection Department.

They were immediately informed that a woman and a toddler were trapped inside. The police officers grabbed a pair of gas masks from their vehicle and rushed inside.

Crouching beneath the thick smoke, they made their way inside, guided by PC1258 from the entrance. Half-way along a corridor, they heard an explosion in the basement and decided to double-back as the situation had become far too dangerous.

Back outside, they heard what sounded like banging from the basement of the vacant house next door.

While the firemen were battling the flames the officers, assisted by a foreigner,  broke down the door to the uninhabited building.

Upon entering, the three police officers were joined by a civilian who, however, was asked to turn back for his own safety. Inside, they soon came face-to-face with the grandmother, who was crawling towards them while carrying her grandchild. The police officers immediately carried the two outside and to a waiting ambulance.

The woman was subsequently certified to have sustained a broken leg after she carried the child up a ladder to the top of an adjoining wall and jumped next door into a yard, hurting herself in the process.