FIREFIGHTERS have praised a woman who raised the alarm and tried to rescue a man lying semi-conscious in a fume-filled flat after a chip pan fire.

Stephen White, aged 43, was detained in hospital after breathing in the toxic fumes when a pan caught fire at his ground floor flat in Plover Drive, Bury, on Saturday night.

A woman who lives on Ferngrove West, facing the back of Mr White's flat, spotted flames and smoke coming from the kitchen.

She alerted her next door neighbour, Sylvia Warburton, who rang the fire brigade before breaking into the flat and attempting to search for Mr White. She was beaten back by thick smoke.

Mrs Warburton also managed to remove from the flat Mr White's Alsatian dog.

Firefighters arrived within minutes of her call and found Mr White semi-conscious on the floor of his bedroom.

The firefighters got Mr White out of the flat and gave oxygen to revive him before he was taken by ambulance to hospital where he was detained in the chest unit.

A fire brigade spokesman said: "There was a great deal of smoke in the flat and there is no doubt that if we had not been alerted when we were Mr White would have died."

Mrs Warburton said: "My friend saw the fire from her bathroom window, and we were basically just being nosey.

"I went to one of his neighbours and rang the fire brigade.

"I went to the flat and shouted but there was no answer.

"I looked around and pulled the sofa to see if he was there but the smoke was so bad I had to get out."

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