A former US marine reserve with a knack for finding himself in the wrong place at the right time yesterday saved his elderly neighbour from her burning house in Sliema.

Monroe Schmidt was asleep in his house in St Margaret Street when he was woke up by the shattering of window panes and neighbours screaming.

The breaking glass formed part of the balcony of 86-year-old Mary Martin's house, who at the time was trapped inside surrounded by the blaze.

The fire had erupted in the sitting room but quickly spread across the first floor and reached the balcony.

"The house across the road was on fire, everyone was screaming that there was an old woman inside but no one went ahead to help her," the 30-year-old Mr Schmidt said.

The Maltese-American former marine covered his mouth with a cloth and rushed into the house. He tried to run up the stairs but had to turn back a couple of times for gulps of fresh air.

"After getting some air, I decided to crawl under the smoke. As I was in the house I was calling out 'ma'am, ma'am' to get her attention but she didn't answer," he said.

He could not hear anything and was about to turn back. "Thank God the sun was shining through the window as that is when I saw her," he said.

He grabbed her and dragged her down the stairs. Mrs Martin, who lives on her own, did not seem to understand what was going on as she kept asking what happened.

Eventually, the police arrived and they intercepted the two half way down the staircase. The wooden balcony was burnt to a blackened shell while the sitting room had by that time been destroyed. The source of the fire is still unknown.

Mrs Martin was treated for smoke inhalation on the spot and then taken to Mater Dei Hospital for the night. Her condition is not critical.

"It was all over in minutes but what amazed me was that there were all those people and no one did anything to help her," Mr Scmidt told The Times later. But the former reservist seems to have a history of being in such situations.

"When I lived in Żejtun around six years ago, a neighbour's house caught fire. Together with another man, we went in and brought out a mother and her child and luckily no one got hurt," he said.

He was also around when a hooded man fired shots, and injured, the owner of a mobile shop in Birkirkara last April while he was on his way to work.

"I was going to work with my lunch in my hand when I hear two shots and see a man running down the street. I just seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.