Amy is Young First Aider of the year, 2011

Nine-year-old Amy McNamara from Guildford has been awarded a St John Ambulance Young First Aider of the Year Award for using first aid skills to help her younger brother.

Twenty deserving winners

The annual awards ceremony celebrates quick thinking of young people who put their first aid knowledge into action in exceptional circumstances. This year there were 20 deserving winners including a 16 year-old who saved his mother's life with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on Christmas Eve, a five-year-old who attended to an unconscious woman in a supermarket and an eight-year-old who helped to treat her mother's burns after she had been badly scalded by a hot water bottle that had burst.

First aid used to dislodge meatball

In McNamara's case, her first aid skills proved vital when her five-year-old brother Mikey choked on a meatball during dinner. She could see he was in distress and unable to breathe and quickly got up from her seat and slapped him hard in the centre of the back. She had been taught to do this by a group of St John Ambulance cadets who had visited her Brownie pack a week before. After three or four back blows the meatball was dislodged and Mikey was able to breathe again.

'I feel proud to have won this award', said McNamara, 'and I know my family, school and Brownie pack are all proud of me too.'

Her mother Helen Roberts said: 'This has proved to me that children even as young as Amy can benefit from first aid courses and as they are so young they soak up information like sponges. She had obviously learnt so much and was able to put it into practice in such a mature way. After the incident she very calmly sat back down to finish her dinner telling Mikey that he should chew his food in future!'

Courageous young people

Amy was presented with the award at a ceremony at St John Ambulance's historic headquarters in Clerkenwell, London, by actor Warwick Davis, who has appeared in films such as Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia. He is also a senior volunteer for St John Ambulance in Cambridgeshire.

Davis said: 'These courageous young people who have been awarded today have shown how invaluable first aid skills are and that they truly can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved. I hope they're an inspiration to others, and encourage more people to learn this important skill.'

Amy has also received a special award from her school, St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School for her actions.