Bedridden expatriate, 83, dies in Benidorm house fire
thinkSPAIN , Thursday, February 21, 2013
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 AN elderly expatriate has died in a fire at his home in Benidorm (Alicante), emergency services report.
The 83-year-old German national was thought to have been asleep when the blaze broke out in his fourth-floor apartment on the C/ Virgen de la Merced at around 00.30hrs on Wednesday morning.
Police, firefighters and ambulance staff rushed to the scene but were unable to save the man, who is believed to have died from smoke inhalation.
He lived alone in a rented room in the apartment, which was also occupied by a young Romanian mother and her son, and a young man of the same nationality, but there were no family ties between any of them.
The deceased's wife apparently visited him on a daily basis to re-connect his catheter, since he was bedridden.
At the time of the fire, the Romanian man was not at home, but when he returned to find the apartment ablaze and was identified by the police, it turned out he had an international arrest order hanging over him for an unrelated crime and was taken into custody.
Emergency services say they were alerted by the young mother, who had been woken up by a man in a neighbouring apartment after he saw smoke billowing out.
The woman had gone to wake the elderly German man, but he had already died.
As yet the cause of the blaze is not known, but an ashtray was found near the mattress that went up in flames, say firefighters.
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