China ‘underpants man’ hailed for rescuing neighbours from fire in briefs

An 18-year-old Chinese boy has been hailed as “Underpants Man” after he rescued an elderly couple from a fire wearing only his briefs.

Senior pupil, Zhu Ye, at the Tongliang No 2 Secondary School in southwestern China’s Chongqing municipality, discovered that his neighbour’s flat was on fire on the evening of October 16.

With no time to put on clothes, he rushed to the flat in his underpants and found an elderly couple inside.

It turned out that the old man was charging his electric wheelchair, the battery of which had exploded and caught fire.

The elderly woman, also surnamed Zhu, said she was struck dumb by the blaze and did not even notice that her legs had caught fire.

Zhu calmly evacuated the couple, unplugged the battery’s power cord and removed it from the flat before carrying buckets of water from his home to put out the fire.

He then called their compound’s security guards, who helped the couple clean their flat.