A TEENAGER from Idle has made a splash as part of a winning team in a Royal Lifesaving Society (RLSS) national competition.

Sam Lawman was in the winning squad in the National Club Simulated Emergency Response Championships seniors category, held at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge.

The 19-year-old was included in the Team Yorkshire line-up which also featured Richard Jagger, 25, of Pudsey, Matt Quimby, 24, of Leeds and Stephen Ward, 34, of Rotherham.

The team, who were competing in their first event together, were victorious against opposition from across the UK.

In the competition, the teams were given the same scenario, a lifeguard attending a swimming pool had slipped and injured himself.

Meanwhile, the people in the pool had a host of things wrong with them, including one suffering a heart attack and another an asthma attack.

Each team had four members. Two were responsible for getting people safely out of the pool, while the other two members of the team conducted the lifesaving work at poolside.

They had two minutes to do all of their lifesaving work, after being kept in an isolation area so they could not see what their challenge was while their competitors were in action.

The Team Yorkshire squad scored 325.5 points, beating Rawmarsh, South Yorkshire, who finished in second place with 315.5 during Saturday's competition.

Sam, who is studying for a degree in Sports and Exercise Science at Sheffield Hallam University, will next be in action in the International Lifesaving Federation's German Cup later this month.

He competed in Australia last year at the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) Commonwealth Lifesaving Championships and the Australian Short Course Lifesaving Championships.

His medal haul included him bringing home seven medals from the two competitions, held at the Australian Institute for Sport in Canberra.

Sam, who has previously represented the City of Bradford Swimming Club, said: "I was not expecting to win. I'm absolutely buzzing.

"We had to assess the situation and get as many people out of the pool as we could. Each team had the same incident to deal with. "Before we went out there, we were in an isolation area. We were then given a sheet to look at for 30 seconds, which explains the scenario.

"It's the first time we have been together as a team. We did really, really well.

"We're hoping to compete together at the European Championships next year.

"I've only been doing these types of competitions for the last three years."