An unconscious man who was rescued from a fire that tore through his home at the weekend, was just four minutes away from death when firefighters pulled him from the flames.

Ryan Cooney was asleep at his home in Queen Street, Chatham, when the fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday.

The 27-year-old said although he had lost everything, he was glad to be alive.

“I’m very thankful to the firemen,” he said. “The paramedics told me that when they pulled me out of the window, I was four minutes away from death.

“I just remember waking up in the ambulance – they’d been trying to bring me round for 27 minutes.”

“The paramedics told me that when they pulled me out of the window, I was four minutes away from death." - Ryan Cooney

Emergency services were called at 2.15am, where they saw a woman in her 20s at the first-floor window. She was led to safety after crews entered the terraced property using a ladder.

Firefighters, wearing breathing apparatus, then entered the building, initially unaware that Mr Cooney was passed out upstairs. They eventually found him in a first-floor bedroom.

Mr Cooney and two friends had returned to his home an hour earlier. The male friend had gone to get a kebab and the woman had gone to sleep in the spare room.

When she smelt the smoke she tried to wake Mr Cooney, but was unable to revive him.

Mr Cooney believes the fire was caused by an electrical fault with the cooker. His one-year-old son was staying with his mother at the time. There was severe fire damage to the ground-floor kitchen and first-floor bedroom, and the rest of the rented house was significantly damaged by smoke and heat.

Mr Cooney was discharged from hospital on Wednesday and is now trying to rebuild his life.

He said: “I’ve got to start from scratch. It’s ruined my whole life. I’ve lost everything, my ID, bank cards, clothes, everything.”

Neighbouring houses had to be evacuated and some residents spent most of the early hours outside while the flames were put out.