Dublin Fire Brigade presents plaque to lorry driver who saved man from burning building

Dublin Fire Brigade has presented a lorry driver with a plaque after he saved a man from a burning building in the capital last week.

On Tuesday evening, Chief Fire Officer Dennis Keeley presented Tomasz Zareba with the plaque in Dublin city.

On June 23rd, Mr Zareba, who delivers groceries for the Eurospar supermarket chain, was driving when he passed a burning building on Granby Row in Dublin’s north inner city.

He parked his lorry outside the building, allowing a man to jump from a window and land on the vehicle.

Speaking to The Irish Times last week, Mr Zareba said he “thought it would be much safer for [the man] to jump on the lorry instead of the footpath”.

The driver had already seen someone jump from the building before parking his lorry beside the window.

“One guy was lying on the footpath. He had blood on his face, and I think he might have broken both his legs when he jumped from the building,” he said.

He then saw another man “screaming from the window”, causing him to intervene.

“I reversed the lorry as close as I safely could to the window, and the other lads from the footpath told him to jump on the roof of the lorry,” Mr Zareba said.

“He was okay, I think. I asked him how many people were in the building, but he didn’t know because he was in shock.”

The lorry driver waited at the scene “in case maybe somebody else would need to jump from the window”.

Once Dublin Fire Brigade arrived, Mr Zareba left and continued his deliveries for the day.

After he received his plaque on Tuesday, Mr Zareba met some of the firefighters and paramedics who attended the scene last week.

A spokesperson for DFB said the plaque was presented to Mr Zareba “to acknowledge his quick actions” in saving the man from the fire.