The RailStaff Awards 2024

Nominations for Samaritans Lifesaver Award

Ashley Parsons

Said the following about James Denby:

“James has always been and always will be a people person. He has a passion for mental health awareness and really cares about people.

In the past calendar year he has personally prevented three separate suicide attempts. The first event was with a fellow team member who was struggling at the time. The events I am far more familiar with were only a couple of weeks between each other, and one the first of which I was involved with myself.

On the Thursday night of the in March 2019 after completing our work for the evening, a young woman walked past us on the platform. Given the time and the lack of services running and the possession in place we thought this was strange, we slowed the check she was ok. A moment later she dropped her bag, phone and coat and began walking faster towards the end of the platform (assuming the lights of the Road Rail Vehicle in the distance to be a train approaching). Correctly believing this to be a suicide attempt and without a second thought, James immediately turned and ran after her to make sure she was safe. James sat and talked with her for around 20 minutes calming her down substantially until she agreed to leave with the BTP officers which had been informed of the situation by the rest of the technical department working that night.

The most recent case was less than a month later, on and evening in April 2019, a man approached the work group at the station, as they were about to enter the station, shouting about the live rails and how he was going to grab one. He walked straight into the station jumped into the up slow had a rant at the person he was with then grabbed the third rail, thankfully the slow lines were blocked as the worksite had been set up so the rail was isolated. Once again without a second thought James started talking to him and managed to calm him down whilst he was walking towards the London end of the station and the two open roads. At this time the rest of the workgroup called 999 and Route Control, Both police and BTP police attended within 10 minutes all while James was talking to him. Fortunately the man decided after James talking him down to get out of the tracks and leave the station by his own accord.

James has always played these events down as "the right thing to do" but had he not taken the actions he did both events could have ended very differently.“