The RailStaff Awards 2024

Nominations for Train Driver of the Year

Angela White

Said the following about Jason Brooks:

“Jason was the driver of our Liverpool Street to King's Lynn service which arrived at Ely at approximately 1830 on Tuesday 20 February 2018. I was working in the Ticket Office and received a call from my on-call manager to ask if I could close up to assist with an on-train incident on the train sitting at platform 1.

I went out and could see the driver, Jason, performing CPR on a male passenger. I boarded the train and asked if I could do anything to assist. Jason asked me to detrain the passengers and to lock out the carriages, which I did. Three or four people with medical knowledge made themselves known to station staff and boarded the train to assist. Jason continued to perform CPR and mouth to mouth, plus he used the station defibrillator on the ill passenger. An ambulance was called by the Station Supervisor but took 40 minutes to arrive at the station. Unfortunately by the time the ambulance arrived, the passenger had passed away and the ambulance staff were unable to resuscitate him.

The Platform staff on duty that night were both new. We had our relief dispatcher as supervisor, who had only joined the platform team recently from being a Booking Office Clerk in Cambridge. Our dispatcher on platform 2 only joined the company in August 2017. Jason took complete control of the situation. He remained so calm throughout and was the ultimate professional.

I'm not sure how Jason was alerted to the ill passenger as other passengers told me they had seen the gentleman board the train at Liverpool Street and although he had been making gurgling noises, they just assumed he had been drinking.

Jason was simply amazing. If he hadn't taken control of the situation, I'm sure it would have been much more stressful for the rest of the staff. I must admit, I never really knew what driver's do other than drive trains and fix them. I was simply in awe of Jason that evening.

I asked my on-call manager how Jason was a few days later. I was told that he was feeling quite deflated because he hadn't been able to save the man like they do in the movies. Well, one thing's for sure. Jason was certainly my hero on the evening of 20 February.“