A father of four has been heralded as a hero for saving the life of an Edinburgh granny after her home was engulfed in flames during the early hours of the morning.
Dean Clark, 35, was on his way to the Co-op, that he manages on Milton Road, after picking up a colleague when he realised smoke billowing into the air above a residential community on Monday April 24.
At first he thought the flames were coming from Sandy’s community hub but on closer inspection they found that a home on Niddrie Farm Grove was on fire.
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He described going into ‘auto-pilot’ and banging on the window of the home that had 85-year-old granny Margaret Burstow and her daughter Helen Knight, 59, inside.
The pair were struggling to find a route out of the property as it had filled with thick black smoke - Margaret's escape was also hampered by the fact she struggles with mobility issues due to poor health.
Dean hopped the back fence to try to gain access to the bungalow and was let into the back door by Helen who he ushered to safety in the garden whilst he wrapped his face with a piece of clothing before going in to search for Margaret.
After finding her, he used his body to help the elderly woman to her feet before he guided her to safety and placed her in the care of one of her neighbours.
“This morning at about 5.20am I was picking up my colleague and after she got in the car she said look at that smoke,” Dean recalled.
He added: “We were on Niddrie Mains Road and after looking up I said we should go and have a noise as I thought at first it could have been Sandy’s community centre.
“But as we turned the corner I saw the flames coming out of the house and that is when I parked up before going to slam on the windows to see if anyone was in.
“I saw two ladies and I told them to open the window as I couldn’t hear them. They told me they couldn’t get out.
“I then ran round the side of the building and climbed the fence to go to the back door. There I saw Helen and I told her to get out as the house was filling up with smoke and flames.
“I wrapped my face up and headed towards Helen’s mum who was able to lean on me and hold my hand as we made our way slowly out.
“I don’t know what happened. I went into auto-pilot and I guess adrenaline just took over.
“It was all about trying to get them out as quickly as I could because the fire was bad, the whole doorway was up in flames.
“As I was leaving the living room I could see the whole home filled with black smoke and parts of the flaming doorway were falling onto the carpet - it was absolutely boiling."
Margaret Auld, 38, says that she is so grateful for Dean’s courageous actions in saving her gran and adds that she does not want to think about what could have happened if he was not on site to help.
Her mother Mary Thomson, 62, and her sister Helen have been staying regularly with their mum after she began to suffer from poor health following a cardiac arrest and recently began experiencing a lot of pain.
She says that Helen was staying on a blow up mattress on the night of the fire and that she had been awoken by a strong burning smell in the early hours of the morning.
A short while later she noticed the whole home was filled with black smoke and she could hear Dean banging against the window.
Granddaughter Margaret, who was named after her granny said: “My gran has not been well and has had a triple heart bypass recently.
“Dean was picking up a colleague in Niddrie and he saw the smoke. When they came to the area to investigate they knew it was a pensioners residence.
“After getting my auntie out he lifted up my gran so that she could put her weight on him before he took her to the neighbours house.
“He gave a statement to the police and the fire service before just heading off to work - we didn’t get his name but knew that we wanted to track him down to say thanks to our hero.
“God knows what would have happened if he had not been here. The firefighters said they normally attach metal barriers to the door frame to close up the home but they couldn’t as the woodwork had completely burned away.
“When Dean got here the roof was on fire and the whole house must have been covered in flames but all he cared about was my auntie and my gran, not himself.”
Margaret, who has children of her own, says that the bravery shown by Dean had meant the world to her mum who feared she would lose not only her mother but her sister too.
They were able to track down their knight in shining armour through the help of the community and when they got to the store they found that he had prepared a care package for the 85-year-old.
This left the family speechless as Dean had once again thought about them before himself with colleagues saying he soldiered on through his shift despite visibly coughing.
Unfortunately the home and its contents are so badly damaged by the fire that it has meant that Margaret has had to move in with her daughter Helen as she is the only family member with a downstairs bathroom.
Margaret, 38, added: “It is absolutely devastating. My gran has lived at that home for almost twenty years and put so much work into her garden with my grandad before he died.
“They have the most beautiful garden on the street. What wasn’t damaged by the smoke has been ruined by the water and she has been left with nothing.
“I’ve never met Dean before but when we went to where he works to drop off a thank you card we had found that the whole team at the Co-op had produced a care package with flowers, essentials and even treats like biscuits and moisturiser for my gran knowing she had lost everything.
“He keeps checking in on my granny and keeps apologising for rushing off. He is an absolute hero and I don’t know what the situation would have been like without him.
“I keep thinking would I have put my life at risk like that if it were me? Most of us would definitely call the fire brigade but I do not know what came over him.
“He definitely restored my faith in humanity.”
She continued to say that they believed that a chair lift left outside of the home for uplift had been set alight and that this had spread to the home.
However, she also shared an incredible story of her gran rescuing two boys from a neighbours flat around 45 years ago.
She says that her granny had entered the tenement flat that had a hole in the ceiling and a caved in floor to rescue the pair - the whole ordeal was covered in the local news at the time.
“I told my granny that the universe had performed a 360 and that Dean was repaying her for her good deeds all those years ago,” she added.
Unbelievably, Dean too experienced his own home engulfed in flames when he was just three, something he admittedly says that he does not remember but nonetheless marked a remarkable coincidence.
Dean, who has four kids aged 15, 14, 11 and five, said that his partner did not know how to feel about the whole ordeal.
He joked she was immensely proud and also terrified at the same time.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: “We received a call at 5.21am this morning to reports of a fire at Niddrie Farm Grove.
“Three fire appliances were mobilised to the house which was alight.
“Crews attended and put out the fire before they left the scene after making the area safe.”
Police Scotland have been contacted for comment.
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