Italy grants residency to illegal immigrant heroine

VENICE, Italy (Reuters Life!) - Venetian authorities granted an illegal immigrant Italian residency for heroism after the Moldovan woman saved her employer's life.

Victoria Gojan -- who worked illegally as a housekeeper for an aged Venetian couple -- is the first person to have been granted Italian residency for heroism, immigration official Riccardo Sommariva told Reuters.

On March 5 Gojan woke up in the middle of the night after smelling gas and found Umberto Viviani, 89, and Angela Pellarin, 87, lying in their bed and unable to leave the house. By phoning a nephew of the couple before fainting, she saved Pellarin, who could have died like her husband.

Sommariva said the mayor of Venice had written to the local head of the police asking him to help Gojan, as he had the power to grant residency permits for exceptional reasons.

According to Italian law the woman could have been deported back to her home country.

(Reporting by Carlo Saccon, editing by Paul Casciato)