TWO Essex Police officers whose quick thinking and brave actions saved the life of a dangerous suspect they were trying to arrest have won an Essex Police Federation Bravery Award.<\/p>\n
PC Sam Saville and PC Deborah Williams – pictured – were working in the force\u2019s Management of Sexual Offenders and Violent Offenders team in December 2018 when they were called to Basildon to arrest an offender.<\/p>\n
PC Saville said: \u201cA recall to prison was put together by probation, an incident was created and then sent off to police for us to go and attend. PC Williams and I saw it on our system one morning and because I knew of the offender – and I met him a few times – I said we\u2019d take it out and go to arrest him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two Essex Police officers and a member of the assisted premises staff \u2013 where the offender was staying – knocked on the man\u2019s door and he replied that he\u2019d be out in a minute when he got changed.<\/p>\n
The officers waited a moment but then instinct kicked in and then got suspicious and asked the staff member to open the door. As they entered, they immediately saw that the man was sitting on the bed with a blade in his hand, already having cut both his wrists.<\/p>\n
PC Saville said: \u201cAs we ran in there, he said to me, \u2018I\u2019m not going back to prison\u2019. We grabbed hold of him and I managed to get the blade out of his hand. He was lying face down on the bed and there was more blood than I\u2019ve ever seen in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
PC Williams, who has been a police officer for 16 years, got a first aid kit and made a tourniquet to put on the man\u2019s arms. PC Saville asked another staff member to get the bedding off the bed and use it as bandages.<\/p>\n
The pair then realised the man had cut his neck too, so they wrapped bedding around his neck, all the time calling on the police radio for more assistance. Eventually, an ambulance arrived and the paramedics took over.<\/p>\n
PC Saville, an officer for 15 years, said: \u201cI\u2019ve dealt with many people over the years for various injuries, and I was quite sure he was losing his life in front of us. And then the paramedics took over. He ended up going off to hospital and spent three or four days there, then was back in custody after that. We acted quite quickly, and I think our actions saved his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to a job where we were going to arrest someone\u2026 but all of a sudden it turned 180 degrees on its head and we were dealing with not trying to get this person back into prison but to save their life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel quite proud of how we both acted. I\u2019m proud of how we both handled the situation, and how we supported each other afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The male survived the horrific injuries he had caused himself and following hospital treatment he was recalled to prison.<\/p>\n
Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said: \u201cPolice officers never know what will happen when they attend an incident – there is no such thing as a routine job. It takes tremendous courage and bravery to open that door when the unknown awaits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis man had harmed himself. Could he have looked to harm them as well? Sam and Deborah would have had in their minds that this man could have turned the blade on them as they ran towards the danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey handled this difficult, dynamic and escalating situation incredibly well and acted very quickly to use the skills they\u2019d been taught to stay safe and save the man\u2019s life. They are very worthy winners of an Essex Police Federation Bravery Award.\u201d<\/p>\n
PC Saville and PC Williams will attend the Essex Police Federation Bravery Awards \u2013 which will combine celebrating the 2020 and 2021 winners \u2013 in Essex in September.<\/p>\n
The Awards are in association with Uniform Mortgages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TWO Essex Police officers whose quick thinking and brave actions saved the life of a dangerous suspect they were trying to arrest have won an Essex Police Federation Bravery Award.\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":175673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175884,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175482\/revisions\/175884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/175673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}