FIVE police officers who battled to save a woman who had been shot in the face with a shotgun have won bravery awards.

Insp Sian Parry, Sgt Adam Jarvis, PC Oliver Herring, Acting Sgt Nicola Drake and PC Chris Wentworth have all won Essex Police Federation Bravery Awards.

It comes after they tried to resuscitate a woman who was shot by her partner during a domestic abuse incident in Southend.

The officers were alerted to an incident in Sutton Road on January 13, 2019.

Police immediately arrested the man, Michael Strudwick before tending to a woman later identified as Christie Walshe.

Officers could see much of her faced had sustained significant trauma in the incident and spotted a sawn-off shotgun next to the sofa she was sat on.

Upon the arrival of paramedics, they discovered Christie was still alive and began giving CPR.

Christie was transferred to The Royal London Hospital, Insp Parry made a number of enquiries and established the details of Christie’s daughter.

She arranged for the Metropolitan Police to collect her and take her to the hospital to be with her mother.

Sadly, Christie died in hospital two days later.

Strudwick admitted Christie’s murder and was sentenced at Basildon Crown Court to life imprisonment.

Insp Parry said: “We really didn’t know what to expect.

“What we did know was that we had to get to the scene as fast as possible to try and save one or two people’s lives.

“The team who attended this incident were all very experienced, so automatically knew what we needed to do and got on with it.

“This highlights that we as police officers face unknown dangers every day.

“Every single person at the scene did absolutely everything they could to save Christie’s life despite the unexpected and horrific scene that we walked into.

“To us, we were doing our jobs, but this incident could have ended differently had the male still been armed with the shotgun when we forced entry to the address. I think the reality of that can take some time to get over.”