A HEROIC neighbour has told how he battled flames to help save a man who was trapped in a flat at the top of a blazing building.

Weymouth residents Casey Rich and Kim Broughton were woken by neighbours in the early hours after a fire broke out in the staircase of their Derby Street flats.

Smoke from the blaze had set off the fire alarm of residents living opposite the flats.

Mr Rich’s upstairs neighbour, Ian Cross, who is in his 50s, could not get out of the building and was hanging out of a second floor window.

Mr Rich, aged 25, went into the blazing building three times to douse the flames with fire extinguishers and stop it spreading into the top flat.

The cause of Sunday’s fire is being investigated.

Mr Rich said: “Ian was hanging out of the window with a blackened face and there was smoke pouring out.

“I was quite worried for him because when I saw the stairs it was quite bad and I had the worst thoughts.

“We called the emergency services and I had a go at the flames with a fire extinguisher.

“It was spreading really quickly up the stairs and was all up the walls.

“I emptied the first fire extinguisher and went outside for a breather, I was coughing my guts up.”

Mr Rich said he went back into the burning building again with another fire extinguisher.

“There was smoke everywhere, I couldn’t see a thing,” he said.

“I got really disorientated, I was trying to hold my breath and keep low away from the smoke.“It took me three goes with the fire extinguishers before it started to die down.

“I spent about half an hour in an ambulance coughing up smoke.”

He added: “After that the fire brigade turned up and put ladders up and carried Ian down.

“It was an excellent effort from the firefighters, they did a great job. Ian was taken away to hospital, he had breathed in quite a lot of it.”

Kim Broughton said: “I can’t believe Casey kept going back inside, he was so brave.

“I was so worried for him, every time he went back inside I thought ‘oh no’ – the amount of smoke coming out was unbelievable.”

The couple thanked their neighbours Stella and Tom for raising the alarm.

Mr Rich said: “Hats off to them because we all had a lucky escape, especially Ian.

“If they had been one or two minutes later banging on our door it would have been a different story as the flames were spreading so quickly. I can’t imagine what it would have been like.”

Mr Cross was due to be released from hospital yesterday.

rachael.burnett@dorsetecho.co.uk