An aviation undergraduate has received a national award - and military recognition - for saving lives outside his job as cabin crew for Ryanair. 

Charlie Little is experienced in performing CPR on passengers suffering on-board heart attacks in his role as a part-time flight attendant based at Stansted Airport, which he juggles with his Aviation and Airport Management BA (Hons) studies at University College Birmingham, his goal being to work in air traffic control. 

But it was his life-saving actions outside his job in the past three years that earned him a Certificate of Resuscitation from the Humane Society, as well as a Coin of Excellence from the Army Cadets, which he joined aged 13 and is where he began his CPR and first aid training.  

He was put forward for the certificate for coming to the rescue of a woman who collapsed unconscious in Charlie’s local pub car park when he was just 18. While he immediately called the paramedics after finding the woman in her forties unconscious on the ground, they had been unable to get to her because of a tree which had fallen on the village back roads following a storm.  

Charlie raced to fetch his resuscitation kit from his car boot, instructed his friend to locate a defibrillator at the church next door, then performed CPR on the woman for 55 minutes until the Air Ambulance arrived. 

During this time, her heart stopped six times. But thanks to Charlie’s quick actions, she finally stabilised and was airlifted to hospital.