Response Week of Action: Officers save drowning woman from the River Trent

Response officers managed to save a distressed woman’s life after she had fallen into the River Trent and was travelling downstream at speed.

In March this year, officers attended reports that a woman, in her 30s, had fallen into the river near Newark and immediately started a search.

After locating some clothing and a mobile phone, they carried out an extensive search of the river by torchlight and spotted a woman struggling in the water.

After several minutes of attempting to rescue her with a water line, PC Oliver Wood managed to position himself at the very edge of the river and reach out and take her hand, pulling her to safety.

PC Wood then administered first aid, wrapped her in his own jacket and kept her calm and safe whilst other emergency services and further officers arrived.

PC Wood, who has been a response officer for four years, said:

“We received a call from a male stating he was concerned about his partner, and she was struggling with her mental health. He thought she was going to jump into the Trent.

“The Trent is a vast area, and it was a very cold evening. I heard this noise like a scream, and I saw someone in the river, struggling to keep afloat.

“My concern was the river is fast flowing and cold and we did not know the condition the female was in.

“If she had got to a certain part of the river, we knew it would be very difficult to get her out, so we needed to act as soon as possible.

“We thought she had been in for about five or 10 minutes, and we did not know how much energy she had left.

“The adrenaline was flowing, and we just needed to get her out as quick as we could as well as maintaining our safety as well as hers. It was challenging.

“I just managed to get to a lower part of the embankment and drag her out. There was a sense of relief.

“It sounds cliché but being a response officer is a job for life. I like being able to help people and making an impact on someone’s life and safeguarding vulnerable people.”

His sergeant Gregory Saxelby commended the actions of PC Wood and the other officers who assisted in the search for the drowning woman.

He said:

“PC Woods decisive actions during this incident undoubtedly saved the life of the woman involved, prevented further risk to the other officers’ present and demonstrated clear decision making and communication under pressure.

“His actions and indeed that of PC Matthew Wileman, PC Thomas Willetts and PC Thomas Evans are an outstanding example of police work at its best and should be commended.”

Nottinghamshire Police has joined other forces across the country to celebrate the hard work, dedication, and bravery of those who respond to calls from the public and confront criminals daily.

Starting today (Monday 24 June), Response Policing Week of Action is an opportunity to highlight the difficult, demanding, and unpredictable work that response officers and staff do to keep people safe.

In April his year, PC Reece Harper and PC Filip Wozniak attended an address where a woman threatened to take her own life.

She was not only sitting on top of her roof but also holding a knife.

Response officers immediately climbed to the roof top and attempted to keep the victim calm and to ensure she did not harm herself.

As she attempted to raise the knife to her body, the two officers risked their own safety to pull the weapon away and ensure she did not fall at the same time.

She was then calmly brought down from the rooftop where she was later sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Their Sergeant Adam Brown said:

“This incident could have easily gone very badly if not for the officers’ dedication in speaking to her and ultimately taking action.

“This incident required split second judgement and decision making by the officers to do something which put them at risk, to remove the female from two different threats - the fall and the knife. This judgement paid off and saved the woman’s life.”

On May 13, response officers were called to an address in Mansfield where neighbours had heard a couple screaming and shouting.

PC Saara Nawaz was one of three officers in attendance. The man at the address became more and more agitated despite the officers attempting to keep him calm.

Things took a new turn when he grabbed hold of a knife, threatening to harm himself.

PC Nawaz said: “I had a split second to react. I tried to see if I could move the knife away however he got the knife before me and gripped it very quickly, so I stepped back in case he lashed out.

“All of a sudden, he then tried to thrust the knife to his chest and threatened to kill himself.

“With one hand I grabbed his arm to try to move him aside and then the other hand try to stop his hand from penetrating the knife into his chest.

“As I clutched his hand, I was unable to move it completely so used my other hand to grab the knife and throw it behind me so he could not grab it again.”

Once in custody, PC Nawaz calmed the man down, ensuring the appropriate steps were taken around his welfare.

She said:

“Whilst he was in our custody, he did not harm anyone else or himself. He had only a minor nick on his chest which could have been catastrophic had I not intervened.”

Welfare is very much part of the job for response officers – and a crime doesn’t need to have occurred for them to respond to incidents.

In May, a family member had not heard from their relative for some days and grew increasingly concerned.

Two response officers attended the address in St Ann’s and noticed the house was shrouded in darkness with the windows closed.

They forced entry into the address where they located a woman conscious but unresponsive   in the bedroom.

She was placed in the recovery position and paramedics were called. They also offered reassurance and managed to ascertain that the woman had suffered a seizure.

Sergeant Matt West said:

“If these two officers had not located her, she could quite easily have choked resulting in a much worse outcome.

“I genuinely feel if it had not been for these two officers using their initiative and forcing entry to the property she would not have survived, and their actions have easily ensured the preservation of life.

“This is exactly why we come to work and do what we do.”