Murder charges for nurse feted as blaze rescue hero

A nurse who claimed he rescued patients from a fire at a home for the elderly has been charged with murder in the blaze, which killed five people and critically injured 13 others.

Roger Dean was charged on Saturday with four counts of murder, and was expected to be charged with a fifth. Four nursing home patients died on Friday, the day the fires ravaged the nursing home in Sydney's suburban Quakers Hill neighbourhood. The fifth, 97-year-old Ella Wood, died in a hospital on Saturday.

On Friday, Mr Dean told journalists he had braved dense smoke to rescue the helpless patients in his care.

"I just quickly did what I could to get everyone out," he told reporters. "The smoke was just overwhelming, you know, we got a lot of people out, so that's the main thing," the nurse added. AP