Grayson is the Head Door Supervisor of the Thekla Night Club in Bristol. He was nominated by Matt Jenkinson, the deputy manager of the night club.
Thekla is a rather unique live music venue, being a converted German cargo ship, which has been berthed in Bristol harbour since 1984.
The incident which has led to this nomination, took place in the early hours of 28 November 2018. Two female customers had a disagreement. One wanted to stay and keep on partying, the other wished to leave.
Following the disagreement, both parties walked away from the venue. A few minutes later a member of the public alerted Grayson that a female had jumped into the harbour waters.
The on-duty security team threw ‘life rings’ into the water in the direction of the female, but she ignored requests to swim to the shore and safety and swam further into the middle of the harbour.
Grayson and his colleagues ran to the other side of the harbour in an attempt to maintain sight of the woman. When they arrived at this location, they could clearly see that she had begun to struggle in the water. Grayson immediately made the decision to enter the water and rescue her.
His efforts were hampered by the fact that she refused to cooperate but he eventually managed to pull her to the side of the harbour where she was removed from the water and into a waiting ambulance which provided medical care and took her to hospital.
In nominating Grayson for this award Matt Jenkinson stated that he deserved to be honoured because he had worked alongside Theklas management to build a core team and to create a venue that put customer safety and satisfaction as a priority, where customers felt confident in the security team to deal with any situations and keep them safe.
In describing the incident, he said:
“He was able to get the person out safely, without putting himself or others in danger. He showed great assertiveness and quick thinking, resolving a potentially dangerous situation in a matter of minutes.”
