A “combative” elderly man has been arrested for pulling a fake gun on Victorian paramedics coming to his aid as he lay in bed.

The 82-year-old was about to be taken to hospital from a home in Cairnlea, in Melbourne’s outer north-west, about 1pm on Monday when he pulled the revolver from behind his pillow and turned on the two paramedics taking care of him.

The paramedics took the gun from the man and handed it to police. They will investigate once the man’s medical condition improves

The man was believed to be having a neurological episode.

Victorian Ambulance Union general secretary Danny Hill told Melbourne radio 3AW on Tuesday the man became combative, but luckily the male paramedic was able to disarm him.

“He’s leapt onto the patient and then he could disarm him,” he said.

But the former policeman-turned-paramedic wrestled the weapon out of the elderly man’s grip before officers arrived.

“He was a police officer before he was a paramedic. In this case he has reacted absolutely quite heroically and what he has done has protected himself and others on the scene,” Mr Hill told AAP, noting there was a relative there too.

Mr Hill said it was lucky no one was harmed in the “terrifying” incident, which proved how dangerous the job could be.

“Our members work in an uncontrolled environment … you go in and just don’t know what people have in their homes, their bedrooms, knives and swords and all sorts of things,” Mr Hill said.

“An 82-year-old man lying in his bed is probably not one you’d expect to produce such a dangerous weapon.”

Police expect to interview the man when his health improves.

-AAP