TRUE bravery in the face of danger is a trait most of us are confident we have.

Yet until it is truly tested, you never can be fully confident — especially if that act of bravery is needed to save another instead of yourself.

Our emergency services personnel in the main have it, obviously.

Yet when the ordinary man in the street does something as extraordinary as the stories we report today, you have to stop and wonder: Could I have done that?

Because it is in a split second that people like Bartosz Pytko and Artur Biegala and the two Michael Kennedys make the decision on fight or flight.

And in both circumstances — fierce, potentially fatal fires — those four men were not found wanting. Their actions saved the lives of Pat McDonald and a 67-year-old man.

At a factory fire in Enstone Mr Pytko says rather modestly: “I wasn’t thinking about anything.” Perhaps in a deliberating fashion, weighing up the odds, he did not.

But he and these other three gentlemen did think: There is someone that will die if I don’t do anything. These men are heroes.