‘Good. Well, in any case, I’ll be leaving you a letter in case your memory is affected. I’m afraid I’m here to tell you that you’re temporarily suspended. It’s slightly academic, given your injuries, but we will be aiming to investigate and adjudicate as quickly as possible.’

Gwen and the paramedics always say he’s a jobsworth, but I don’t blame him for sounding pissed off.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. ‘I know it was the wrong thing to do, I should have got help immediately.’

‘Or not gone walkabout in the first place. The rules are there for a reason, as you discovered. And now you’re plastered all over the news as some hero, it makes us all look like bloody idiots. Hence the disrepute clause in the letter.’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘You really haven’t seen it yet? Ah, yes, I remember. You wrecked your radio and your phone due to your rash actions.’ He drops his iPhone into the tray table as though it’s contaminated. ‘Go on, search for yourself.’

As I type my name in one-handed, Google is completing my search with the name ‘Joel Greenaway’.

The top result takes me to a YouTube video, which buffers forever. I go back, to a report posted by BBC Online. The image pixelates but the voiceover is clear.

‘In the midst of the terrible scenes at the Sussex train derailment last night, there was a moving fragment of hope. Air ambulance doctor Kerry Smith located a young child who’d fallen into a dangerously swollen river after being separated from her grandmother in the chaos.’

The video keeps freezing but I can make out enough to realize that it’s switched from aerial footage to something more close-up.

I recognize myself, holding Emily’s hand as she’s being moved onto a spinal board, ready to be lifted out.

How the hell did they get this?

‘Dr Smith fell down the bank and sustained fractures that left her unable to climb out and raise the alarm. But in an uplifting twist, it was TV presenter Joel Greenaway – there filming a documentary about the fire service – who first located Dr Smith and her young patient.

‘This remarkable footage shows the rescue, as Dr Smith supported the little girl, despite her own injuries.’

I look up at Sawyer. ‘But I didn’t know anyone was filming . . .’

He shakes his head.

The images change again, and I force myself to keep watching.

‘And as soon as the video was posted on social media, viewers spotted another connection between Dr Smith and Mr Greenaway, who presents Secrets of Wellbeing on BBC2. Eighteen years ago, the two hit the headlines as teenagers, when Joel suffered a cardiac arrest in his hometown of Brighton, and Dr Smith, then studying for her A levels, saved his life.’