A fish salesman who saved an elderly woman from her smoke-logged house has credited not wearing deodorant for his act of valour.

Tommy Robertson, 29, was helping his friend sell fish from door to door last Wednesday afternoon when he realised he had left the house without wearing any deodorant.

He drove to the Costcutter on Vesta Avenue in St Albans to buy some anti-perspirant when he saw a house the pair had missed when selling their fish.

He explained: “Had I not needed deodorant I wouldn’t have stopped.”

Upon approaching the house, he heard a fire alarm and dogs barking and immediately became concerned when there was no reply to his knock on the door.

After calling his colleague, he looked through the letter box and smelled gas.

Tommy then knocked on the neighbour’s door, who became very concerned for the elderly lady, said to be in her 70s, who lived at the address.

Tommy called the emergency services and ran through the neighbour’s house before jumping over the fence to the lady’s back garden.

“I looked through the window and sure enough I could see the dogs going mad and to my left I could see this woman on the sofa passed out and breathing erratically.

“I banged on the window really loudly. I could really smell gas so I’m trying to alert her and wake her up.”

He then went into the property through a side door and saw two pans on the stove causing the smoke, with gas ‘pouring’ out of all of the hobs.

Tommy quickly ventilated the property before passing the dogs to the neighbours, by which time firefighters and paramedics were on hand to help rescue the woman.

The paramedic told Tommy that if the woman had been left much longer she wouldn’t have survived.

He said: “I wanted to bring this story to the table to remind people to look after your elderly loved ones and neighbours.”

The woman was taken hospital with smoke inhalation but her injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.