A TEACHER who saved the life of a student has been nominated for a St George's Day Award.

Emma Denham saved the life of Sam Mangoro when he had a heart attack during her PE lesson interview at the Mountbatten School in Romsey.

She used a defibrillator to restart the youngster's heart and now she campaigns to have the life saving devices installed in more public places and to raise awareness of them.

Since staring her campaign she has successfully had a defibrillator installed in the Jolly Sailor pub in Bursledon which can be used by any member of the public.

She even shaved her head to raise the money to pay for the machine.

Her next step is to take her campaign to Parliament to raise more awareness about the need to defibrillators in public areas.

Now she has been nominated for a Daily Echo and Southampton St George's Day Festival Community Award in the category of Biggest Campaigner for Change in the Southampton City Region.

Miss Denham said: "I am so amazed to be nominated."

She added: "I am writing a letter to the Prime Minister because the biggest problem we have now is people are scared to defibrillators and think they are going to get sued if they use it wrong.

"But if there is a heat beat the defibrillator won't let you use it, it is fail safe and if you need to use it the person is already dead.

"Sam is my driving force, he is such an amazing individual and everything I do now is because of him."

The winners of the St George’s Day Awards will be announced at the St George’s Day Festival on the day itself, April 23.

The festival is taking place at The 1865 in Brunswick Square, Southampton. For more information go to bit.ly/1ScFaVT.