It happened late on Thursday afternoon, when an officer from the Junta de Andalucía’s Road Surveillance Service was driving along the A-334 between the towns of Arboleas and Zurgena.
The officer observed a fire in the ditch and saw an elderly man struggling to put out the fire.
He immediately stopped the official vehicle and called the fire brigade, while the man went in and out of the burnt area, until at one point, according to the man’s account, the man – who insisted on picking up his shovel – did not return.
The road patrolman quickly went into the burnt area and noticed that the man was no longer answering, motionless and at the mercy of the flames.
He stopped the traffic and with the help of an English couple and a young man, they formed a human chain and were able to evacuate the old man who was lying on the edge of the flames.
Undoubtedly, fortune was on the side of the neighbour who, by chance, coincided with the passing of a highway patrolman who did everything in his power to help him.