Bravery award for 'death road' teacher

The road has claimed many lives

A Shropshire man has been honoured with a prestigious bravery award for trying to save a woman injured in the Andes mountain range.

Jeremy Hart, a teacher at Moreton Hall School in Oswestry, was part of a team that rushed to the aid of the French woman, who had fallen from a Bolivian road.

The victim, also a teacher, plunged 50 metres from the mountain path into the jungle below, near to the country's capital of La Paz.

Mr Hart, who climbed down to try to save the woman, has been awarded a Bronze Medal by the Royal Humane Society.

Mr Hart struggled in vain to rescue the victim, improvising a cradle to winch her back up to the roadside.

But an ambulance failed to arrive at the scene of last August's accident and the woman died.

The society described the rescue effort as a "Herculean attempt" and said that all those involved had had their expertise and stamina tested to the limit.

The road, which winds down from the Andes mountains into the Amazon jungle, is regarded as one of the most dangerous in the world and has earned the title the "Road of Death".