YEP Says: A modest hero - the police officer clung onto van over A1M

He’s the heroic police officer who clung onto a van left which had been left teetering over the busy A1M with the driver of the crashed vehicle trapped inside.

Pc Willis, a traffic officer with 10 years of experience, says he was “just doing his job” after black ice left the region’s roads in a treacherous state.

Others say he’s a national hero for risking his own safety in order to prevent an even greater calamity from occurring while he awaited for firefighters to arrive at the scene.

As the driver recovers in hospital after his miraculous escape, this dramatic incident is not just a timely reminder about the importance of the work undertaken by those traffic patrols who have survived recent cuts in funding and manpower, but how members of the emergency services routinely compromise their own lives to protect the public.