The Guardia Civil rescued an elderly couple of 90 and 91 from a house fire in the province of Toledo, in Castilla-La Mancha.

The emergency number for the Guardia Civil, 062, received a call reporting the said house fire on the 11th of January.

An officer who was on patrol duties in the municipality of Quero, where the fire took place, was the first on the scene followed by the municipal police.

When the officer arrived he was met by the daughter of the couple trapped inside explaining that they both were suffering from reduced mobility and couldn’t get out of bed.

She told him that the fire had begun in the clothes dryer and then had spread to the central-heating boiler and its oil tank. She had rushed outside to find help and the frontdoor had closed behind her – the keys were inside.

The officer set about trying to break the door down using his shoulder and kicking it and finally managed to force his way in. He found the couple lying in their beds in separate rooms, unable to get up by themselves, so he opened windows so that that they weren’t all overcome by smoke coming from downstairs.

At this point the local doctor managed to help the officer get the two victims out using a wheelchair from his surgery.

Then, this time aided by two municipal workers,  they managed to start putting the fire out using fire extinguishers until the fire service arrived to finish the job.

Whilst the fire personnel were putting the fire out, Guardia Civil reinforcements from Villafranca de los Caballeros and from Quintanar de la Orden arrived and cordonned off the area, enabling the original officer to go to a nearby medical centre to be treated for smoke inhalation.

Editorial comment: Quero is a village with 977 inhabitants to the south east of Aranjuez in the south-eastern corner of the province of Toledo. It lies just over 100km from the city of Toledo.

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