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An off-duty officer has been presented with a Royal Humane Society award after carrying out emergency resuscitation on a man out walking.

PC Hannah Wheatley, an officer with Cambridgeshire Police, was training for the London Marathon when she came across a group of people standing around a man who had collapsed.

Ms Wheatley carried out CPR on 76-year-old Brian Kinealy for 20 minutes before paramedics arrived and stabilised him.

PC Wheatley said: “I didn’t have time to think, all I knew was Brian needed help."

The officer came to the rescue while she was running around Burghley House near Stamford, on the Cambridgeshire border, a route she covered as part of her training for the London Marathon.

She said: "I knew it would take quite a time for the ambulance to arrive because of the rural location, so I had to keep going – his life was in my hands.

"This was the first time I’d ever used my CPR training in real life.

"Every year we have our training and I think to myself, ‘I wonder whether I’d be able to do this on a real person'."

Mr Kinealy, who is now 78, and had never had heart issues before, said: "She gave me the best care and apart from a couple of broken ribs – which is to be expected during CPR – I made a full recovery.

"I cannot thank Hannah enough or speak highly enough of her courage to put herself forward to save my life."

In his hospital discharge notes, it commended the excellent care and CPR he had received before reaching hospital.

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