Bravery award for trek death boy

A Kent boy who died on a school trip to Austria trying to save a friend has been given a posthumous bravery award.

Hayden Waller, 12, was a pupil at the Howard School in Rainham when he fell while trekking in February 2008.

The Try Angle Award, presented by the Medway Youth Parliament, also recognised his family for their bravery in coping with the tragedy.

His mother, Hayley Waller, said the award was very unexpected, but the family were thrilled.

"We think about him [Hayden] every day," she said.

"It's very nice for other people to think about him and for it to be recognised."

'Instinctive reaction'

A verdict of death by misadventure was recorded at an inquest into Hayden's death.

It had heard how he fell 30ft (9m) on a school skiing trip to the Austrian Alps.

He and his friends were trying to climb to a plateau on a mountain near their hotel but had found it too steep and so had turned back, on the afternoon of 18 February 2008.

As they clambered backwards down the mountain, Hayden had tried to grab hold of one of the other boys as he slipped and fell above him, but in doing so he himself had lost his balance and plunged to his death.

Coroner Roger Sykes said it would have been an "instinctive reaction" on his part, but one "which his parents can justifiably be proud".

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