A police officer who died after being hit by a train while helping a distressed man has been described as “everything that you would want in a police officer” by a former colleague.
The chair of Nottinghamshire Police Federation, Insp Simon Riley, said Sgt Graham Saville was a “caring, compassionate, strongly determined, and just generally an all-around good, professional police officer”.
He added: “It’s fair to say that it has absolutely devastated the force.”
Saville, 46, died on Tuesday with his family at his bedside after sustaining serious injuries when he was hit by a train on the east coast mainline near Newark where he was attempting to help a distressed man.
The man sustained non-life threatening electrocution injuries and was treated in hospital.
Riley said the circumstances of Saville’s death had affected officers around the country.
“It is often a cliche that we are a police family and when something like this happens it deeply affects us all, and that extends to beyond Nottinghamshire as well,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“We’ve been contacted by federations and officers up and down the country who’ve reached out to us to offer their condolences.”
Saville was responding to a call shortly before 7pm last Thursday over concerns for a man’s safety. A number of other officers were also at the scene and provided first aid to Saville.
“There were a number of colleagues present, unfortunately they did witness the incident, and we have been providing support to them,” said Riley. “As you can probably understand it’s been very traumatic for them.”
He said the situation had been very dangerous but was “indicative of the dangers that our members put themselves in day in day out, shift in shift out, in order to protect the public”.
“You don’t really think about it, you sign up to be a police officer to help the public and understand that there are going to be occasions where you are placed in dangerous situations,” he said.
He added that as the investigation, which is being led by the British Transport Police, continued, there may be “lessons that need to be learned”.
“The types of incidents our members are called to are often very dynamic, fastly paced and our members are expected to make decisions very quickly, on the hoof,” he said.
“It’s always very easy to pick apart any decisions people might make in the cold light of day, but that’s what we’re paid to do … make decisions very very quickly with the ultimate aim of protecting members of the public.”
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was one of a number of people who paid tribute to Saville after the news of his death. “It is a testament to his bravery that he died in the line of duty and a terrible reminder of the work the police do every day to keep us safe,” he said.
“My thoughts are with his family, friends and the whole of Nottinghamshire police force.”
