Honors for a cave diver

[Kelly Jessop]

http://cavingnews.com/20130103-bucki...rd-stanton-mbe

An English cave diver was made a Member of the of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year Honours list recently announced by Buckingham Palace.

Diver Richard Stanton, a firefighter based in Coventry, has received the award in recognition for his 23 years of service as a firefighter and his volunteer work as a cave rescue diver.

This is not the first time the 51-year-old has been recognized for his services.

In 2011, Stanton was voted Hero of the Year by his firefighter colleagues during their Aspire Awards ceremony. Then again, last year he was presented the Bronze Medal from the Royal Humane Society for his efforts to help recover the body of French cave diver Eric Establie who became trapped in France’s Draggonniere Gaude cave system in 2010.



It isn’t particularly unusual for me to get official looking letters in the post because of my international rescue work, but when I got notification of this on behalf of the Palace I was absolutely astounded. I’m just doing work I enjoy to the best of my ability, but I’m thrilled to be awarded the MBE. — Richard Stanton, Cave Diver/Firefighter, West Midlands Fire Service

Top Coventry Firefighter honoured with MBE [West Midlands Fire Service via reader

[JamesK]

That's great! Congratulations Richard.

[sskasser]

Congratulations!

[derek]

He did a skype presentation with Brett Hemphill for the Cave Alliance and Light Monkey rebreather summit. He talks a little bit about his history and some of the caves he has explored and about home built or home modified rebreathers. A video of the presentation can be found here

[gschaut]

Sir Richard.