00:00 June of this year. Now he'd been enjoying a night out in York with his girlfriend and
00:05 a couple of friends when they noticed a man behaving funny and strangely on Euse Bridge
00:10 near the city centre on Euse Bridge. As they watched, the man climbed onto the bridge,
00:15 parapet and stood up. Now our winner and one of the girls in the group were concerned that
00:21 the man was going to jump and they walked back to the centre of the bridge to ask if
00:26 he was okay. The man was very dismissive at first but as his actions became increasingly
00:32 worrying, our winner knew that he had to intervene and despite there being plenty of other people
00:39 on the bridge, he did and the distressed man eventually agreed to come down from the wall
00:45 if our winner took his hand, which was a particularly terrifying moment for our winner who didn't
00:51 know if he might get pulled into the river Euse himself. Now he continued to talk to
00:56 the man, finding out that he had served in the army and he was having a relationship
01:01 crisis before surreptitiously signalling to a passing police van that help was required
01:08 and although the police van initially drove off, two officers - you know, he did come
01:14 back in another form. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? The police drove off but they
01:19 did come back on foot five minutes later and our winner was able to confirm the need for
01:24 assistance without alerting the distressed man. So one of the officers then took over
01:30 the care of the man and our winner was then able to brief the other on exactly what had
01:34 been happening and the police were able to take that man away to safety. Now, that's
01:40 an amazing feat, but when our winner is not saving lives, he enjoys acting and that's
01:45 a skill that he definitely brought into play that night, using it to appear calm and confident
01:51 when he definitely felt anything but. And he's also a dancer. He's appeared in both
01:56 stage and dance productions and is currently studying for a degree in film and television
02:01 at Sheffield Hallam University. And, which might explain the film that we've just seen
02:07 on the walls behind us, he loves cars. All cars. So we took the opportunity to take him
02:14 for a special spin on the foggiest day in October. That's what you were looking at
02:19 there if you were wondering what all that was about. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure
02:23 you will agree, the courage shown by this teenager in a situation which could have had
02:30 a very tragic outcome makes him an amazing and very worthy winner. Give a massive round
02:38 of applause for this very courageous young man. Ladies and gentlemen, our winner of the
02:43 2023 Unsung Hero title is Owen Jeffers.
02:49 [Applause]
02:55 [Music]
03:19 [Applause]
03:21 I just wanted to ask you, what was it like, what was that moment like for you? To have
03:27 the courage to look after that for a moment. Terrifying. It was really, really scary. But
03:33 I just had to, on the face, sober up and just go straight there and just try and help him
03:39 out because it looked like he was having a really rough time and it was really confusing
03:43 because everyone else was just passing by. I felt like I just had to step in and do
03:47 something. It was really hard. Well done, you did it and that's an incredible achievement.
03:53 Well done, congratulations to our Unsung Hero.
03:57 [Applause]
Comments