An elderly, bed-ridden man narrowly escaped being trapped in flames in his room when the front door of his Sliema house was torched yesterday.

Spiru Buttigieg, 86, who has been seriously ill for the past nine years, was asleep when, at 12.45am, unknown individuals set the front door of his house in Rudolph Street alight.

Had the wooden louvered window adjacent to the door caught fire, he would have not have been able to get out of bed and escape the blaze, his daughter told Times of Malta.

By the time we got here, his room was already full of fumes

“My father is seriously ill and my mother is too frail to have been able to help him. By the time we got here, his room was already full of fumes,” said Antonia Buttigieg.

“It’s a vandal act, which could have had more tragic repercussions,” she said, noting that her father had not been able to get out of bed for the last nine years.

The elderly couple was asleep when the door was set on fire. The police were alerted to the blaze by neighbours at about 1am.

Upon their arrival, they instructed Ms Buttigieg – from the outside – to cover her mouth with a damp cloth until they managed to force the door open.

The fire was put out by policemen using fire extinguishers.

The family was still trying to come to terms with the incident.

“No one saw anything, so we cannot point fingers but all I can say is that my parents never bother anyone and their lives centre solely around the family.

“We cannot understand why would anybody do such an act of vandalism to our parents,” said her daughters.

Ms Buttigieg, 76, who has been living in the Sliema house for 26 years, could barely speak in shock.

She expressed her worry that the phone lines – hanging on the facade – had been damaged in the blaze and she was left without phone connection and unable to call for help if she needed to take her husband to hospital.

“We repeatedly reported the case throughout the day but it seems to be falling on deaf ears,” said Antonia Buttigieg, calling on Go, the phone operator, to urgently re-install her parents’ telephone connection.

She said: “We are constantly having to rush to hospital with him because he is seriously ill. If something happens to my father at night, how can she call for help?”

The elderly couple are also without a TeleCare system, which permits elderly people to get immediate emergency help at the press of a button. The system cannot be reinstated until the landline connection is fixed.

“We are making this plea because my mother does not know how to use a mobile phone and panics when given one to use, so a landline is a must for my parents,” said her other daughter, Simone Buttigieg.

By late in the afternoon, the Buttigieg family was still busy cleaning the house of the soot and the phone had still not been reconnected.