Suzy Rowland

Said the following about George Heffernan:

“George was the duty fitter at London Marylebone and responded to a call about smoke coming from AL05. his performance throughout this incident from about 9pm until he was relieved at 03.00 was outstanding & deserves recognition. His quick response to the sighting of smoke, analysis of the situation & decision to involve the fire brigade was spot on and probably avoided escalation of an already serious situation. also his involvement in the decision to evacuate the station showed excellent judgement; this would have been a difficult decision to make due to the inconvenience of hundreds of our customers but it was absolutely the right thing to do for public safety.

George also voluntarily stayed well beyond his shift to support the fire brigade. throughout this incident, George showed exceptional physical & moral courage, care for the safety of himself & others, and professionalism normally expected of someone with far greater experience. His communication with the DFM throughout was excellent greatly helping the on call engineering manager, and the wider senior engineering management team to stay well informed of what was going on. The information he provided allowed us to make critical decisions on how we could recover from the incident and minimise the risk to our other trains.“