Cambridge 91-year-old Tony Trollope remembers seeing flames coming from a frying pan on his stove but not much else.
He was lying dazed and unable to move on his kitchen floor after his hip gave way in the middle of cooking dinner on Friday night.
"I was cooking steak and
I think the fat must have got on the element," he said. "I could see it blazing away above me."
As the house he has lived in for 20 years filled with smoke, and blood flowed from a gash on his forehead, he pushed his Life Link medical alarm and hoped.
St John Ambulance volunteers from Cambridge answered his call and are credited with saving his life.
St John area manager Nigel Bryant said that when the volunteers arrived at Mr Trollope's home they saw smoke billowing out of the house and called the fire brigade.
They then went into the smoke-filled house, put out the frying pan fire and dragged the pensioner to safety.
"They are pretty humble guys," said Mr Bryant. "They say the only reward they needed was seeing the look on this guy's face when they dragged him free."
Mr Trollope said he did not recall being pulled from the house but remembered being treated outside.
"They were wonderful."
He believed he was lucky to have been lying on the floor because the smoke rose above him.
"I don't know how it happened. I grabbed the couch on the way down and that went over with me as well."
Mr Trollope was taken to Waikato Hospital, where he received seven stitches for the gash on his forehead and was treated for smoke inhalation.
He said his home escaped damage.
"There's only one frying pan that's a bit burned. I'll have to get a new frying pan. These things are sent to try us, I guess."
Mr Bryant said the St John volunteers would be recommended for a commendation.
"The consequences if they had left it could have been a whole lot more tragic."
