Elizabeth line station assistant made MBE after saving 29 lives

An Elizabeth line station assistant who has saved 29 people at risk of ending their lives at the railway has been made an MBE in the New Year Honours list.

Rizwan Javed, 33, has helped to save each life by being alert and approaching vulnerable individuals in difficult situations.

He has received 29 suicide intervention commendations and numerous other awards in recognition of this work and has now been honoured for his services to vulnerable people.

Mr Javed told the PA news agency: “When I received the letter through the post I was asleep, my mother brought it upstairs saying ‘you’ve got an important letter you need to open it’ and I was like ‘mum, I’ll open it when I get up’.

“She just carried on, I said if you want to open it that bad you can open it, and she opened it, read it out and she was more excited for me than I was to be fair because I was half asleep, but when she told me I had to read it about 10 times to digest it, it was amazing.”

He added: “I attended the Samaritans training course about 10 years ago when I joined the railway, they basically teach you key skills of how to identify vulnerable people, what sort of conversations to have with them and how to take them to a point of safety, and I was fortunate enough to implement that two days later in a live scenario working at one of the stations.

“From there basically it has continued, I’ve had 29 interventions since then and spread awareness on national television as well, also on social media now I’ve created an account on Instagram and TikTok where I will be sharing my story and also getting people to share their story to maybe inspire other people that are going through similar situations.

“So I feel like this MBE award has given me the confidence to take it a step further on a wider scale.”

He said the interventions have an “emotional impact” on him.

“It is emotional because a lot of the individuals have been older than myself, some youngsters as well,” he said.

“I grew up going through various challenges and I think if we’re all honest we all wake up in the morning and we’re fighting a battle of some sort.

“It’s how we deal with it.

“So you do have an emotional impact but the way I dealt with it is to spread awareness on a wider scale within my family.

“Coming from an Asian background, they’re not really educated about mental health, if you’re going through mental health issues your mother (will) probably give you a paracetamol and say you’ll be OK in the morning.

“So a lot of stuff like that, breaking that barrier and getting people to talk about mental health, whether it’s at work or at home, has been a coping mechanism for myself.”

This year’s list includes a total of 1,227 recipients.

For mental health support, call the Samaritans on 116 123, email them at jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org to find your nearest branch.