ALTHOUGH Nick Connelly's family know how laid back he is, even they were taken aback by his relaxed attitude to what he and his friend David had just done.

No more than an hour before, both he and Dave Parry, both 17, had rescued John Green, 63, who was asleep upstairs at his home on Bryer Road, Prescot as his living room was ablaze.

As he went to his Coronation Drive home, Nick was very dismissive about his actions.

Dad Paul explained: "We didn't know anything about it. He same in and said, if I smell of smoke it's not my fault, I've just saved somebody's life.

"I've not been smoking. We couldn't believe it. It took a second to register what he had just said."

Nick wasn't keen to blow his own trumpet.

He described what had happened: "I heard the smoke alarm faintly just as I was about to knock on my mate's door who lives over the road.

"As we got closer we looked through the window and could see the flames. Half the couch and the carpet were on fire."

"We knocked on the door but there was no answer.

"I smashed the front door window, but he had put the bolt on the door, so I jumped over the fence and we got in through the back."

His friend Dave Parry took up the story: "As I ran upstairs to wake John, Nicky was throwing pans of water on the fire."

"We've known John all his life, but he was dazed and didn't know what was going on, so I carried him down the stairs."

"By now we were starting to choke and the flames were getting near the gas pipes. We were panicking a bit so we got him out straight away."

As they struggled to put out the flames and rescue Mr Green, they managed to drag the smouldering couch into the garden.

Their fifteen-minute ordeal ended with the arrival of the fire brigade.

When asked about the deserved praise they received, the laid back heroes were true to form: "The fire brigade were made up," they said.