CHIEF Scout Bear Grylls has praised a courageous Scout leader who rescued a woman from fast-flowing water on the night he was flooded from his own home.

Kentdale district commissioner Michael Ryan - already a Westmorland Gazette flood hero - has been awarded the Scout Association's highest honour for gallantry.

Describing Michael as a 'shining example', international adventurer Bear said: "His contribution and devotion to Scouting is an inspiration to me and many others; he should be rightly proud."

Last December, as Storm Desmond deluged the town and forced Michael to evacuate his home on Shap Road, he was walking to stay with a Scouting colleague when he saw a woman floundering, on Sandylands.

The force of the water had knocked her off her feet and she was being swept towards a nearby beck and the River Kent when Michael put himself in danger by reaching out his walking pole and pulling her to safety.

"I am so humbled to receive this award and being recognised for what happened that terrible night in Kendal," said Michael, whose courage came to light when the grateful woman wrote to national Scout headquarters to praise his actions during her "nightmare experience". She described him as her 'angel' and said she was convinced that without his actions she "would not be here to send this letter".

Michael gave the woman "some sound health advice" on the effects of swallowing floodwater and offered her his coat - which she declined - and walking pole. "I did ask how he saved me and he just said, I did my duty as a Scout leader," she wrote.

Michael previously told the Gazette: "To me I was just doing something because somebody was in trouble, but other people have said it was quite a courageous thing that I did."

The Bronze Cross was presented at a ceremony in Ambleside by North West regional commissioner Andrew Corrie, Cumbria county commissioner Matthew Canwell and Lord-Lieutenant of Cumbria Claire Hensman.