Ballymagorry man saves fellow journalist from inferno

A BALLYMAGORRY man has spoken humbly of his involvement in saving a journalist’s life during a blazing inferno in Portugal.

Simon Patterson, a freelance MotoGP reporter said he acted on impulse when a police motorcycle and a taxi crashed at the Portimão racing circuit on Saturday. Tragically, police officer João Fernandes died in the incident while journalist Lucio Lopez, who was in the taxi when it crashed, was pulled from the flames by Simon.

For his part, Simon was later treated for smoke inhalation at hospital but was otherwise unscathed.

“They didn’t keep me in,” he told the Chronicle this week. “I was on oxygen for a while to clear the lungs but I was OK.”

The incident occurred when the police bike and taxi collided head-on with the former initially bursting into flames. Simon explained that he had been driving away from the Portimão circuit at the time. “It was like a bomb site,” he recalled.

“It happened behind me when I was leaving.”

The first indication that I had was the explosion. The motorcycle caught fire and that’s what I saw in my rearview mirror, the first flash of flame. I slammed the brakes on grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran back. The fire had set the car alight and I realised the car was going to go up as well.”

Hailed as a hero by the Portuguese press, Simon admits there was “no thought process” at the time. All he knew was, there was someone in the car and it was going to explode.

“When I arrived, the passenger in the car was a friend of mine, Lucio (Lopez), although I didn’t know that at the time. He was lying at the side of the car and I could see he was in trouble, if we didn’t move him. I ran forward and pulled him back. I did the same for he police officer, before things went up.” He continued, “My first thought afterwards was that I was stupid because I didn’t stop to think about (what was happening). It’s one of those things: People tell you you’re brave for what you done, but if it hadn’t worked out I’d have been stupid.

“But it certainly would have been a lot worse if we hadn’t been there.”

The crashed car exploded not long after Simon had heroically pulled his friend from the wreckage. However Lucio remains in intensive care in hospital.

“All the news I hearing about Lucio, from his wife and from friends, is better every day – which is good,” Simon said.

“In this sport, crashes are a part of it. I started covering racing at home and so I’ve grown up with a certain exposure to crashes… but that’s definitely the closest encounter I’ve ever had.”