A day after junior inspector Trendafil Trifonov saved a 14-year-old boy from drowning in the waters of the Maritsa River near the village of Ognyanovo in the Pazardzhik region, the child and his family sent emotional words of gratitude to the police officer. The incident occurred on Wednesday, when a game by the river almost ended in tragedy. The strong current dragged the boy, and his friends were unable to help him.
„We were wading in the water and suddenly the current came and pushed me, dragged me down. The other two boys tried to help me, but they couldn't," 14-year-old Stoyan Iliev told Nova TV.
When asked what he would say to the policeman who saved his life, the boy answered briefly: "Thank you very much for getting me out." And does he see Junior Inspector Trendafil Trifonov as a modern-day hero? "Yes," Stoyan says without hesitation.
The boy's parents say that their son went to the river without their permission. After the horror they experienced, they admit that they have difficulty finding words to express their gratitude to his savior. "We will be grateful to him for the rest of our lives. That's it. Thank you very much. He is a hero. He jumped straight in to save him and we thank him“, said the boy's mother Teodora Ilieva.
Junior Inspector Trendafil Trifonov has been working at the Regional Police Directorate for 29 years. He said that for the first time in his practice he had to save a person from drowning. But despite this, he does not feel like a hero.
“The child only told me that he was going to drown. I told him to hold on for another 10 seconds. I took off my gun and went in. I swam at an unreasonable risk, since the current there is quite strong - all the water in the river is collected in the middle of the bed. Only the boy's head was above the water. If he had drowned, the current would have carried him away. The depth is probably over 2 meters after the bridge”, said Trifonov.