A man who helped a "lifeless" elderly man who was on the side of the M11 has been hailed a hero by his grateful wife.
On the hottest day ever recorded in the UK to date last week, many people didn't want to leave their homes as the weather was unbearable but one couple had little choice but to nip out to take a relative to hospital.
However, on their return drive back down the M11, the wife, who wished to remain anonymous, noticed her husband "didn't look right".
Somehow he managed to pull the car over to a stop on the hard shoulder before he passed out, leaving his terrified wife fearing for his life as he has a heart condition.
The woman, 86, says they had no air conditioning in their car and opening the windows hadn't helped him.
She checked her phone to call for help, only to her dismay to find the batter had died. Desperate for assistance, she got out of the car and began waving wildly at passers-by for help.
"I was a crazy old lady waving on the side of the road," she told The Mirror. "I couldn't tell you what it felt like on the side of that motorway. When you're in the car you don't realise how fast people are going.
"I just hoped someone would see and call the police."
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For a while it seemed like no one was going to come to their rescue and then, almost out of nowhere, Shaun Smith approached them.
The 31-year-old from Leighton Buzzard had spotted the woman trying to flag someone down and decided to see what was wrong.
He pulled over behind their car and leapt into action, moving the man into his vehicle so he could use the aircon and calling the emergency services.
Shaun, who works as a Site Manager at J. Murphy & Sons Limited, said: "I was driving home from work down the M11, coming up to junction six which is the junction for the M25 towards Watford.
"As I was on the motorway, I saw a car on the hard shoulder in the distance and as I've come up to it I saw a lady and she was she looked like she was in really distressed and she was waving, trying to wave the cars down. You could tell that something was wrong. And also, I noticed that no cars were pulling over. So as I got past I pulled into the hard shoulder.
"She didn't see me at first but when she turned around, I could see the relief on her face. I went up to her and she was like really distressed and upset and she's telling me about her husband and said he was in the driver's seat.
"Straightaway I saw him and he looked lifeless and the windows were open and his head was just hanging out the window and his eyes were closed and there was just nothing. Nothing there. Like just lifeless to me.
"Bare in mind this was on the hottest day of the year. It appeared to me he was struggling in the heat so I asked about the aircon and it wasn't working, so I carried the man into my own car. He could still moan and groan but his legs kept giving way."
Shaun laid the 76-year-old man down on his backseats, cranked the aircon and also offered the couple some water.
He then called for an ambulance, but emergency services told them it would take up to four hours to get to them.
Knowing this could be dangerous for the man, he offered to drive them to A&E, but the woman thought this was also a risk, so they agreed to go home and the ambulance would meet them there.
Shaun drove the couple back to their house, leaving a note on their vehicle with his number and explaining what had happened.
During the journey, he claims the man started to come around a bit more, thanks to the aircon and started to say a few words as they chatted.
It was then Shaun learned that the couple was also having a problem with their electricity - and hadn't been able to use their fan at home that morning.
"She just mentioned in the electrics haven't worked since this morning, downstairs. And obviously, they need the fans and when they get home she was just stressing out that the electrics aren't working and they don't have much family around them.
"I said okay when I get there, I'll have a look and see if I can fix it. I'm a bit of a handyman, I kind of know what I'm doing that kind of thing."
Thankfully it ended up being an easy fix as it was just the breaker that had tripped, so Shaun flipped a switch and all was sorted.
The paramedics then arrived and checked the man over and he is now feeling much better and doing very well. They noted that if Shaun hadn't stopped to help, things could have been much worse for him.
The couple has since praised Shaun for his kindness and help, branding him their own personal "hero".
The wife said: "He took over everything, he brought us home. It all came together. Everything that fella did was right.
"You don't often get a hero, but he was.
"I don't know what we would have done without him.
"He'll always be a hero to us, we cannot praise that boy enough. There's not many like him about. Nothing was too much for him.
"If I ever win the lottery, he'll be at the top of the list."
She went on to say that the experience had been a big lesson for her as well as she'll never go out without ensuring her phone is fully charged again.
Shaun appears to have made friends for life with the couple, who he has spoken with on the phone several times following the incident.
His company have since shared a post about his heroic antics on LinkedIn where it has gone viral, garnering over 84,000 likes and more than 3,700 comments.
The response to this has been "overwhelming" says Shaun.
He added: "To me, it was not really a big deal what I've done but when I got home that night, I obviously felt a bit happy with myself of what I've done. So I just put a post on LinkedIn didn't think anything of it and yeah, it just went from there.
"It's nice to see all the messages I've been getting. And it feels it feels like it's inspired a lot of people. So what I'm hoping for from this is that if other people are ever in that situation, then they might actually think to stop rather than driving past because a lot of cars obviously didn't stop.
"So it'd be nice if people heard the story and then it makes them think twice before they're driving past someone who's in need."
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