An inspiring story of kindness. A 20-year-old student from Targovishte saved a disabled elderly woman by risking his life to carry her out of her burning house, police reported.
The fire in the two-story house in the Targovishte village of Strazha occurred on January 4. The fire probably started from the space between the two floors of the house, with the chimney catching fire and starting to spread along the length of the house.
The fire quickly spread. And in one of the rooms on the first floor, a 94-year-old woman with limited mobility lived alone. Her chance for life turned out to be 20-year-old Mustafa Jamalov from Targovishte, who at that time was driving down the street, returning from his grandparents' house in the village of Cherkovna.
Suddenly, his car entered a cloud of thick smoke. At first, he did not understand where exactly the fire had started. He left the car and approached the house from where the flames were coming.
Mustafa immediately called 112 and started blowing the car horn - in the hope that neighbors would wake up and also help.. He started shouting loudly if anyone was there.
In response, the voice of the elderly woman was heard, pleading for help. Mustafa was aware that every lost moment could be fatal. Despite the shock, he did not panic, and immediately remembered that an acquaintance of his lived two houses away.
He went to wake him up to help him get the woman out of her burning house, and to get a flashlight for lighting. Together with Miroslav Bozhidarov, they returned to the burning house.
The windows on the first floor were no longer there, and from inside they could hear the woman's screams that she was on fire. The two rushed inside, as the flames had also engulfed the shed... To prevent the risk of a flaming beam falling on top of him, Mustafa wrapped his sweatshirt over his head.
Nothing was visible inside due to the thick smoke curtain, they only knew where the elderly woman was by her screams. They grabbed her in their arms and carried her outside, to a safe place.
They put her in Mustafa's car. The woman was without shoes, without socks, but alive. The “Emergency“ team that arrived at the scene examined her and found that she was in good health, but very scared.
She kept repeating that her house had burned down. At that moment, the fire brigade teams arrived, turned off the electricity in the entire street and began extinguishing the fire. A police team also arrived. At that moment, the rescued woman was living with her daughter in Targovishte, and renovation work had already begun in her house, which was seriously damaged by the fire.
That memorable morning, after they had handed the elderly woman over to safe hands, Mustafa went home to Targovishte, took a shower, slept, and at noon he traveled to Sofia, because he had an exam the next day. He took it.
The young man is a second-year student at the Forestry University in the capital. What gave him the extra courage to enter the fire without hesitation at that extreme moment?
Maybe - the fact that he grew up in a village, maybe sports helped (he trains in freestyle wrestling). He doesn't name it, but undoubtedly - his big heart. He says that at that moment he simply wasn't afraid.
But he doesn't hide something that deeply saddened him that night - when he entered the smoke with his car and honked his horn, several more cars passed by after him.
They slowed down, but no one stopped to help, or at least to call 112. The only call to the single European emergency number about the incident that night in the village of Strazha was his.
He didn't share this story with many people. He doesn't want noise around him, cameras, interviews. He just snapped a photo of the burning house - just like that, as a souvenir. Otherwise, life just goes on - today Mustafa is traveling to the capital again. He has another student exam waiting for him.
During his visit to the fire station, the head of the Regional Service “Fire Safety and Population Protection“-Targovishte, Chief Inspector Angel Angelov, presented him and Miroslav Dragomirov with certificates of appreciation for their valiant act, thanks to which a human life was saved.