Hero PC in line for top award
APOLICEMAN who saved a drowning man’s life has been nominated for a national bravery award.
PC Mohammed Nadeem, from Rochdale, has been named as a finalist in the Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons 2018.
He had only been in his job for nine months when he answered a call on his radio about a man in distress at the bottom of the banking of the River Irwell in Bury in February this year.
PC Nadeem’s life-saving action has earned him a place in the finals of the award’s ‘Service To Their Country’ category.
The officer was first on the scene and after scrambling nine feet down the banking he found the man on a mobile phone – he later learned he was calling the police.
He began talking to the man who suddenly lost his footing and fell back into the swollen river.
Without a moment’s thought for his own safety, PC Nadeem plunged in after him and for the next 20 minutes fought to get the man back to the banking and safety.
PC Nadeem said: “I was wearing my full uniform but I never thought about the risk. I could see just the man’s hands showing above the water. As soon as I got in it was head deep and freezing cold.
“Having my body gear on, weighing a lot extra, it pulled me down.
“I couldn’t feel my legs and I couldn’t even speak, I was just stuttering.”
His heavily pregnant wife did not know about the rescue and it was only when the story made the headlines and then through social media it went around the globe, that she found out.
His colleagues dubbed him The Hoff after Baywatch star David Hasselhoff. After he picked up a national Police Bravery Award, he was amazed when The Hoff appeared on the screen to congratulate him.
PC Nadeem, is passionate about his job despite it being stressful. He said: “If I can do something that makes someone else’s life better. When I rescued the man, I didn’t think of the risks.
“Saving him is the best feeling in the job. We are there to protect people, to save people. When I received the bravery award, I couldn’t have asked for more. But it was not just for me it was for all police officers.”
PC Nadeem will attend The Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons finals luncheon at the Army and Navy Club, on Pall Mall, London, on October 16, where Falklands War hero Simon Weston will present the awards.