Two Tenby firefighters picked up a ‘bravery award’ last week at a special ceremony held in Cardiff.

The winners in each of the nine St. David Awards categories were announced at a glittering ceremony in the Senedd at Cardiff Bay, last Thursday night, by the First Minister of Wales, the Rt Hon. Carwyn Jones AM, and an array of well-known faces.

The St. David Awards are the national awards of Wales and are nominated by the public, recognising the outstanding achievements of different people from both in, and outside of Wales.

Gary Slack and Billy Connor - on-call firefighters at Tenby Fire Station with three years service - took the ‘bravery award’ on the night.

On August 7 of last year, whilst performing community PR activities at Tenby Harbour, they were part of a crew alerted to swimmers in difficulty at Castle Beach.

On reaching the beach with their watch manager, they saw two children, a brother and a sister, aged 13 and 14, in obvious difficulty about 100 metres from the shore, in an area where rip tides are commonplace.

With the fire engine approximately quarter-of-a-mile away, the remainder of the crew raced to get the necessary equipment.

The children were becoming increasingly tired, swimming against a strong current and swell conditions, and were beginning to disappear beneath the water, at increased risk of drowning.

Given the time it would take for the crew to return with the equipment, and that both mother and father were about to enter the water in an attempt to save their children, the decision was taken by their watch manager (based upon their open water swimming experience) that they enter the water and undertake a rescue swim.

Billy swam to the boy and brought him to safety, while Gary swam out to the girl and kept her afloat whilst trying to bring her back to shore. However, the sea conditions proved difficult and Billy returned to assist in recovering the girl to the beach.

There the children were both treated by Fire Service personnel who gave first aid until an ambulance arrived. Both were successfully rescued and were taken to hospital with concerns of secondary drowning.

Gary and Billy were praised by the RNLI, whose own lifeboat based at Tenby was attending another rescue 12 miles from Tenby on the day, and said that had both firefighters not intervened, the outcome would have likely been fatal.

Of the awards ceremony, the First Minister Carwyn Jones said: “What a fantastic group of winners - congratulations to everyone who’s won an award this evening.

“I know there are fantastic people doing exceptional things here in Wales. I’m lucky as I travel across the country, to see first-hand the efforts people make, day in day out to make Wales as great as it is,” he added.

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service’s chief fire officer Chris Davies QFSM said: “On some occasions, our firefighters go above and beyond the call of duty and often prevent tragedy.

“It was widely recognised by the RNLI crews that their swift, immediate actions, undoubtedly saved the lives of the two children.

“Events like this are very humbling and are a true reminder of the pressure and expectation placed upon our firefighters.

“Billy and Gary were awarded the Chief Fire Officer’s Commendation, for their actions and they are worthy recipients of the St David Award for Bravery,” he added.