A schoolboy has won a top award for bravery after saving his mother when she fell 100 feet down a ravine in the north of Scotland.
Sebastian Williams will be presented with a Pride of Britain Child of Courage Award tomorrow night in recognition of his quick thinking and cool head under pressure.
The 11-year-old, who attends St Columba’s Church in London, climbed down the gorge at Ben Cruachan, near Oban, to comfort his seriously-injured mother Suzanne and then raised the alarm by using her mobile phone.
He subsequently called a Coastguard helicopter and Mountain Rescue team to the scene and she was airlifted to hospital.
Mrs Williams, 43, said she was lucky to be alive after losing her footing during the family holiday. She managed to stop her descent to the ground 200 feet further below by jamming the sole of her foot into a gap in the rocks.
Sebastian, known to his family as Seb, climbed down and held her hand and talked to her for around 30 minutes to keep her conscious while they waited for the rescuers to arrive.
He said: “I just reacted when I saw mum fall – I was not scared at the time.
“I was telling her about the amazing holiday we were going to have in Namibia, how we were going to go horse riding the next day and how everything was fine and how they (mountain rescue teams) were coming.”
Mrs Williams, who grew up near Perth, was left with a gash on her head, suffered two broken bones in her neck, a broken jaw and smashed her right kneecap.
She spent three weeks in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth and Royal Infirmary hospitals and a week in St Mary’s Hospital in London.
Asked what she thought about her son’s honour, Mrs Williams said: “I am incredibly proud and very touched by it and continue to be amazed by what he did, and the support he and all my family have given me ever since.
“He is excited and very happy to have won the award and is touched that Oban MRT and Coastguards nominated him.”
Mrs Williams’s husband Derek and daughters Francesca, 10, and six-year-old Natasha, were on the walking trip when the accident happened.
Last month, the family returned to the west coast and climbed Ben Nevis to raise money for rescuers and a children’s charity. They have already raised more than £12,000.
The family’s minister at St Columba’s Church on Pont Street, Rev Angus MacLeod, said: “This is wonderful news and the award is much deserved. Well done Sebastian, we are proud of you.”
The Pride of Britain Awards is on ITV on Sunday at 9pm.
