A GALLANT nurse who came to the aid of a woman who had been shot in the stomach is to be rewarded for his heroics.

Daring Dino Christodoulou stepped in to try and disarm a gunman after Margaret Sillitoe had been shot at point-blank range in King Street, Whalley, last March.

His courage will be a celebrated at a ceremony on October 21, when he will receive a police bravery award from Lancashire Chief Constable Pauline Clare.

Dino, a social therapy nurse at Park Lee Hospital's stroke rehabilitation ward, was transferring patients by ambulance when he saw stricken Mrs Sillitoe slumped on the floor. She had been shot and beaten with a .22 rifle.

He leapt from the vehicle and intervened by grabbing the offender's weapon. Afterwards he was nominated for the award by Lancashire Police. He said: "I received a battering in the struggle, but I couldn't believe that there were so many people driving past doing nothing."

Just two months after his display of courage the 32-year-old successfully spent two hours talking a potential suicide victim down from a multi-storey car-park .

His courage shone through again as the girl was threatening to throw herself off the Ainsworth Street car park in Blackburn.

She agreed to come down off the roof after Dino and a policeman spent two hours trying to coax her down.

Dino, who is also a hospital chaplaincy visitor, will be one of more than 30 people to receive bravery awards from Mrs Clare at the ceremony.

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