Policeman drags unconscious man out of burning Paeroa home

Constable Cameron Young pulled a man from a burning building. Photo / NZ Police

A Waikato police officer risked his life when he smashed down the door of a burning house and dragged out the occupant who had gone back into the flaming home.

Constable Cameron Young came saw smoke while on the job in Paeroa on Sunday and quickly found a house was on fire.

He kicked open the gates to the old weatherboard home and found the resident and neighbours trying to put out the flames with garden hoses.

When Young went around the front to direct firefighters, a woman raced around saying the man had run back into the house through what he described as "the worst part of the fire".

"My initial thought was he must be dead if he went back through there," Young said.

He smashed the glass of the locked French door and spotted the man as soon as he was inside the smoke-filled room.

The 73-year-old man was dazed but reluctant to leave.

"I grabbed him and told him we had to get out. I knew the smoke was getting bad - by the time I turned to get him out the room was full of smoke, you couldn't see."

As smoke enveloped them the resident collapsed.

Young grabbed him, pushing items aside as he dragged him backwards through the house and outside. The man's clothing was singed and his left hand and hair were burnt.

The injured man was flown to Waikato Hospital.

"The public were amazing," Young said. "Without their help it could have been a different story.

"I certainly believe I just did what any other cop would have done. I just did what I thought I needed to do."

But a neighbour said it was Young who deserved praise.

"I have no doubt that Constable Young's brave actions in smashing his way into a house, which was well ablaze, whilst disregarding the risk to himself in forcibly removing the occupant, saved the occupant's life and Constable Young's actions deserves high praise," the neighbour said in a message to police.

Sergeant Lara Beisly, of Paeroa, said everyone at the station was proud of him.

"[The man] already been inside for a few minutes breathing in the smoke – he would have died if he'd been in there any longer."