Hero Carl Kennedy abandoned his own engagement celebrations to rescue a drowning woman from a river.

He and fiancee Abi Barker had just broken the happy news of their wedding plans to Carl's parents Mick and Kim.

But as they walked along the River Wear in Durham towards a pub, an elderly woman plunged into the water and was swept past them.

Carl, 26, of Stanley, Co Durham, said: "I saw people looking anxiously at the side of the river at Milburngate, and realised there was a lady in the river.

"I took off my shoes and trousers and plunged in. The water was freezing but I managed to get the woman's head out of the water. She kept disappearing underneath. My dad waded in to help me keep a hold of her.

"We stayed with her at the edge of the weir until the rescue services arrived."

Abi, 25, who met Carl when the pair were studying Creative Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, and who now runs a Creative Arts business in Stanley with him, said: "I knew Carl would not hesitate in going into the water."

She added: "It was certainly an eventful weekend. We are in the process of moving into a new house, we held our engagement party for 200 guests in our local pub and we were about to have some lunch in Durham when Carl and his Dad were diverted.

"I had to go to the shops to buy them some dry clothes. Lunch was rather late, but I am very proud of him."

Durham Station Officer Steve Smith said: "If it hadn't been for them, goodness knows what the outcome would have been."

The woman, in her 70s and is understood to be a patient at a local hospital, was taken to Durham's University Hospital where she was treated for hypothermia.