She was just seconds away from horrific death... but one heroic teenager changed everything

A woman who was saved just seconds from a horrific death when she was a baby wants to find the teenage hero whose brave actions gave her a life.

Debbie Carr, now 63, was only two-years old and living in her childhood home on Highbank Drive in East Didsbury when their house caught fire. The story made the Manchester Evening News on January 12, 1963.

Her mum, Joan, was downstairs with her three-month old brother, Peter. As she was feeding her Peter, she smelled smoke coming from upstairs.

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Joan told the M.E.N: "I went into Debbie's room to see her bed smouldering. I must have accidentally switched on the electric blanket earlier while putting her to bed.

"I pulled Debbie out and put her on the bed in our room at the back of the house while I went down to see to the baby." But when she tried to return seconds later the upstairs of the house had become an inferno.

Beaten back by the heat on the stairs, Joan told the newspaper: "I dialled the fire brigade and then screamed to neighbours. Several of them tried to get to her from the inside of the house but the heat was too much."

Returning to his home on Highbank Drive at this time was 19-year old apprentice engineer, Ronald Barker. Together with his ex-policeman dad, Wilfred Barker, they ran to the burning house.

They placed a ladder against the window of the room where Debbie lay, which the teenager climbed. At the top he burned his hands on the window frame but fought through the smoke to the unconscious baby lying face down on the bed.

The teenage hero told the