A SAXON Fields man has been named as a finalist for a national heroes awards.

Russell Piper has been shortlisted as one of 50 finalists in the St John Ambulance’s Everyday Heroes Awards.

The annual ceremony aims to recognise heroic actions of ordinary people.

Mr Piper, of Emden Road, is one of the finalists for the Workplace Hero category.

The category honours individuals who have used first aid to save a life or made an extraordinary first aid achievement while at work.

The 54-year-old is a project manager for Morgan Lovell – an office design and build company.

He was working on a construction site in the London borough of Ealing when his colleague Stephen Headley had a cardiac arrest.

As a first aider for his firm for 15 years Mr Piper called the emergency services while giving CPR.

After several minutes of providing rescue breaths and chest compressions, another first aider heard Mr Piper call for help.

The two men took turns in giving rounds of CPR for 15 minutes before paramedics arrived with a defibrillator.

Mr Headley survived but suffered brain damage and was unable to walk or talk for a long time afterwards.

Although the incident happened in February 2014 he has only recently recovered sufficiently to put Mr Piper’s name forward for an award.

He says: “I don’t have much money or anything else to give so this is the only way I could think of to say thank you to Russell for saving my life.”

Not only did Mr Piper save his life, but he also visited him in hospital, provided support for his partner and arranged transport home for him.

As a result of Mr Piper’s actions, his company now offers AED training to staff and has made defibrillators available to site teams.

The father-of-three said: “Noone wants to come face-to-face with a life or death situation like that. But when it happened to me, I was just so glad I’d been trained in first aid.”

The awards ceremony, supported by Laerdal Medical, the creators of CPR mannequin Resusci Anne, will be held on Wednesday, September 7 in London.

Sue Killen, CEO at St John Ambulance, said: “Everyday Heroes is the very essence of what St John Ambulance is about – ordinary people doing extraordinary things through first aid.”