Dacia Community Hero of the Month: Damian Wight

Our final Dacia Community Hero of the Month for the 2021 season embodies everything this award is about. The winner showed bravery and intuition, and his life-saving actions are nothing short of heroic. 

Damian Wight attended Dacia Magic Weekend at the beginning of September to follow his team, Warrington Wolves. While in Newcastle enjoying a weekend of rugby league, Damo just so happened to be a bystander to an incident outside of the event, and those involved want to recognise and thank him for what he did.

Warrington Wolves, Super League, and the whole Rugby League community are proud to have Damo as part of our family. Along with the Community Hero trophy will come a shirt signed by the Wolves playing squad and this personal message from Wolves forward Joe Philbin. However, no one is more grateful to you, Damo, than Gavin and Cheryl Hoyte.

Cheryl, wife of Gavin Hoyte explained: “On a Saturday afternoon in early September, Gavin - who is a fit and healthy 35 year old - was out with a large group of friends celebrating an impending wedding. Unexpectedly, Gavin experienced a sudden cardiac arrest and his friends attempted to assist him and put him in the recovery position.  

"At this point, Damo, who was himself out with friends and enjoying the rugby weekend, intervened and recognised that Gavin was in fact in need of resuscitation. He immediately started CPR and believed he had revived him, only to find he needed to restart the compressions again, which he continued until the ambulance arrived and the medics stepped in to defibrillate him. 

"Gavin is 6ft 4 and I can only imagine this would have been physically exhausting for Damo to continue, but his quick instinct and calm, courageous response was undoubtedly an act that saved Gavin’s life.  Damo was quick to shrug the actions off as what anyone would do but regardless of his job as a firefighter, this was not a scenario that he met whilst on duty and required him to think quickly and unexpectedly.  

"Whilst Damo doesn’t regard his actions as a big deal, the impact of them to our family is immeasurable.  Gavin is a gentle giant and a devoted family man with two daughters aged 6 and 21 months. He has worked hard to set up his own scaffolding business to build and create a good home life for our young family and the outcome of this scenario could have been very different."

"So to our hero Damo Wight from all of Gavin’s family and friends, 

We need to thank you... 

Thank you for being there 

Thank you for knowing what to do

Thank you for saving us from devastation

Thank you for giving Gavin the gift of his life and his children their dad’s continued presence as they grow

Thank you for giving us more days to watch on with pride. 

You really have blown our minds!

Thank you truly forever..... 

Damo Wight, our angel of the North!??

And so to Damo, our previous Community Heroes, and everyone else in the rugby league community who does something for nothing just to help others, we thank you.