Selfless action without hesitation was the shared sentiment among recipients of the Hummingbird Medal (Bronze) at the 2025 National Awards Ceremony, where four individuals were honoured for acts of gallantry.
Speaking to TTT News after the ceremony, Akil Des Vignes, who sprang into action upon seeing a child clinging for his life from a ferris wheel, said he would change nothing about his actions and would do it all again without hesitation.
As a father of two young daughters, he explained that it was simply instinct.
“I didn’t think about my safety. When everything happened and I reached home, my thought process was I was just outcome-focused. I wasn’t caught up in the process of how I was getting up there. It was just about saving this child, and it was just to save him and go home. The national attention and how viral it went was really not expected at all.”
Similarly, Terrance David and Dashawn Hamilton described how they saved a police officer’s life after a vehicular accident on the Beetham Highway in September 2024.
Despite repeated warnings to seek safety, the duo stood their ground, refusing to leave until the officer was rescued, risking their own lives in the process.
Mr. David recalled: “We had to jerk him out. He is not no experienced firefighter or nothing. So, we had to multitask, because I watching the bonnet and people was on the highway saying, “Allyuh move, move, move, move,” and is just like, I don’t know if it was God who was in we, but we make it happen, and we get him out, and he safe and sound.”