Reluctant hero Paul Donovan has lost count of the number of lives he’s saved – but insists it’s all in a day’s work for the emergency services.

PC Donovan – a police dog handler and former firefighter – has just received his latest in a string of awards for bravery.

The 37-year-old’s tales of courage include smothering a woman who had set fire to herself on a garage forecourt and resuscitating a friend who suffered a heart attack during a rugby match.

He also persuaded a suicidal teenager from hurling herself onto railings from a scaffold above.

The Canterbury officer has also dragged families from raging fires, freed crash victims from their crumpled cars and even saved the injured from being paralysed – on two occasions.

Yet PC Donovan is adamant he is no different from his colleagues on the frontline.

He says: “A lot of this is everyday stuff – and I don’t mean for me, I mean for a lot of public sector workers.

“Every copper and every firefighter does stuff that would amount to this. Nurses, paramedics and other health workers too. They just haven’t been recognised for it.”

PC Donovan was recently awarded for his part in the dramatic rescue of a girl in the city centre.

CCTV operators had spotted two young women on the footbridge that spans the Pin Hill dual carriageway.

One of them was on the “wrong side of the railing”, while the other seemed to be grappling with her.

“When I got there one girl had jumped and the other literally had hold of her by the hair,” said PC Donovan.

“Suddenly she went up in a fireball – I don’t believe she meant to do it... I ran and rugby tackled her and smothered the flames...” - PC Donovan

“It was like something out of a film. The hair was slipping through her fingers and I just managed to get hold of her by the clothes and haul her back onto the bridge. Anyone would have done the same.”

With typical modesty, the officer says all praise belongs to Bethany Hornsby, the student who initially grabbed her pal as she jumped. Miss Hornsby has also been awarded for her courage.

PC Donovan says he had always been “fascinated by flashing blue lights as a kid”.

He admits he was never one who could stand still for long and eventually put his boundless energy to good use when he joined the fire service in Canterbury aged 20.

“I loved it from the off,” he says. “You get to a scene and there’s 15 minutes of absolute pandemonium, then you start to get control. I thought there would be nothing like it.”

In 2002 he attended a call which proved to be a turning point.

Firefighters had been called to a blaze at a house in Folkestone and had rescued a 12-year-old girl from the flames.

She had inhaled vast quantities of smoke and was choking to death.

“I’d recently done my medical training and they said to me ‘give it a go then’,” he recalls. “I was shaking like a leaf, but managed to bring her round with an oxygen can.

“It was an amazing feeling – a real buzz, to be honest.”

The incident was the first of many in which PC Donovan helped members of the public cheat death.

One of the most memorable involved a call to the former petrol station forecourt on Rhodaus Town in the city centre, in 2003.

“We were told a woman in a wheelchair had doused herself with £4 or £5 worth of unleaded and was threatening to set fire to herself,” says PC Donovan.

“We got there and she’s clicking her lighter, as if to say ‘I could do this’. We stood 15 metres away and I thought ‘this isn’t going to go well’, so I gathered a fire blanket.

“Suddenly she went up in a fireball – I don’t believe she meant to do it. The flames nearly hit the roof and she started to run towards the kiosk.

“I ran and rugby tackled her and smothered the flames.”

PC Donovan suffered burns to his face in the incident and has slight scarring to this day.

The victim, a 38-year-old woman with mental health problems, suffered serious burns, but survived.

Asked how many lives he has saved, PC Donovan shrugs and says he hasn’t been counting.

A keen horse rider, he used to volunteer at an equestrian centre offering riding lessons for disabled people.

Once, they received a mobile phone call from a rider who had fallen from her horse. They could hear her groaning and found her crumpled on the ground.

Other riders on the scene were set to lift her onto a gurney, but PC Donovan’s medical training kicked in.

“I yelled ‘No!’ just in time,” he says. “We carefully put her in a neck brace first and stabilised her while we waited for paramedics to fly in.

"Every copper and every firefighter does stuff that would amount to this. Nurses, paramedics and other health workers too. They just haven’t been recognised for it..." - PC Donovan

“She was transferred to London and had broken her neck in three places.”

On a similar occasion, PC Donovan managed to stop members of the public moving a motorcyclist who had come off his bike on the New Dover Road.

Again, it transpired he had broken his neck.

PC Donovan is also a keen rugby player for Canterbury RFC. During one game a friend collapsed on the pitch with a heart attack.

Using a “jaw thrust” manoeuvre, PC Donovan cleared his pal’s airways and gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while a nurse performed CPR.

After 45 agonising minutes they brought the victim, Canterbury firefighter Mark Jones, round.

“He’s fit and well now,” says PC Donovan. “He’d have done the same for me.”

And he’s not just saved humans from imminent disaster.

In 2006, as crews battled to save eight people living above a shop in Palace Street, which was set alight by a burglar, one of the victims said her rabbit was still inside.

“My mate was at the top of the ladder and I headed back inside,” he said. “I couldn’t see anything because of the smoke and felt my way to the hutch.

“I realised the door was open and thought the rabbit had escaped. Then I felt something soft and carried it out back to my mate at the window. Turns out I was handing him a teddy bear.”

With no thought for his own safety, PC Donovan headed back inside and found the rabbit – when it leapt out and grabbed his mask.

On other occasions he has saved cats, dogs and parrots from fires as well as a wild stag from a dual carriageway.

“It’s all normal stuff,” he says.

In 2008, he joined the police force to broaden his horizons. Three years later he became a dog handler – a position he says he loves.

Police work has often called for the softer touch too.

In 2013, he was called to negotiate with a young woman threatening to hurl herself off a house roof in Oaten Hill.

After a tense stand-off PC Donovan, a trained negotiator, managed to coax her down.

“I chatted with her, offered her no promises, but said I was there to listen, to sympathise.

“I love it. I wouldn’t change it for anything...” - PC Donovan

“I can’t say there’s any secret to it – just to be caring and considerate, I suppose.”

PC Donovan has also lost count of the non-fatal incidents that, to those in any other profession, would be life-changing.

He’s used his fist to stem the blood-flow of a man with a severed arm, fought off a strapping man who broke his arm with a shovel and rescued dogs, cats, deer – and even parrots – from certain death.

And yet he refuses to accept that his awards suggest a level of courage or bravery beyond normal duty.

“I’ve been both a firefighter and a police officer, which has maybe exposed me to more of these situations,” he explains.

“I’m also a dog handler, which means I work alone and I’m often first on the scene to deal with a situation.

“And, with my medical training, I’ve often been the one called on if there’s someone in trouble. It really is luck of the draw.

“I can’t stress it enough – this is what people in the emergency services deal with day in, day out.

“I love it. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

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