70 year old Francisco Biedma saved his 39 year old roadsweeper son, Manuel, from a fire at the flat where the younger man lived alone on the Avenida La Perla in Usera yesterday lunchtime.

It seems that Francisco and his wife had gone to visit their son after he had phoned his mother that morning to say that he was not going to work because he was suffering from a cold.

When they got there, at around 1.30pm, they saw smoke pouring from the flat and were told that several neighbours had tried to break the door down.

Without thinking twice, Francisco unlocked the door and dashed into the building to save his son. "I covered my head with my overcoat and went inside. If anyone should have died, it should have been me. I had to save my son," explained Francisco.

Manuel is recovering from the affects of smoke inhalation at the 12 de Octubre Hospital in Madrid.

It seems that this is not the first heroic act performed by Francisco, who, in his younger days, once dived into a river to rescue a boy from drowning.