Two nurses from King’s Lynn and a Grantham man have been awarded top national life-saving honours for their fight to save the young victims of a road crash which claimed the life of a 21-year-old.

The awards follow their battle to save the lives of two young boys in the crash at Terrington St Clement in which the driver of the car they were travelling in, Laura Pesterfield, was killed.

IT engineer Charles Douse, 62, of Pastures Road, Barrowby, gets a Royal Humane Society Testimonial on Parchment and a Resuscitation Certificate.

Nicola King, 30, of Stody Drive, South Wootton, and Emma Simmonds, 34, of Broom Close, South Wootton, are to receive Certificates of Commendation from the society.

The crash happened on December 21 2015 on the A17 Lynn Road. The car carrying the two boys, brothers aged five and eight, pulled out to cross the central reservation and was hit by a truck and pushed into the opposite lane.

Mr Douse and the nurses all arrived at the scene separately and stopped to help. Mr Douse went first to Miss Pesterfield, from Wyberton Road, Boston, but realised that she was already dead.

He then turned his attention to the boys, neither of whom appeared to be breathing. He cleared one boy’s airway while Ms Simmonds went to help the other. She and Ms King removed the boy she had been helping from the car and after clearing his airways put him in the recovery position.

They then got the other boy out of the back of the vehicle and looked after both of them until an ambulance arrived. They helped to stabilise the boys in the back of the ambulance before it left for hospital.

Royal Humane Society secretary Dick Wilkinson said: “They were, put simply, the right people in the right place at the right time. Tragically the driver of the vehicle was killed. But had it not been for the swift action of Mr Douse, Ms King and Ms Simmonds, the final outcome could have been even more tragic.”

At an inquest in June 2016, Norfolk coroner Jacqueline Lake concluded there was nothing truck driver Paul Gallacha could have done to prevent the crash and Miss Pesterfield died as a result of her injuries due to a road traffic collision.

No date has yet been fixed for presentation of the awards.