"To be honest,'' said Roland Hill -- his voice dropping to a serious whisper -- "when I got into the water I was fearing for my own life.

"The water was so rough I couldn't see anything. Just whitecaps and riptide.'' From the pool-side comfort of Government House where he and 19 others had just received Bermuda Bravery Awards, Mr. Hill retold the events of August 28 1996 when he jumped into the water off Hungry Bay Paget, and pulled 13-year-old Stuart Forbes and Keith Holmon -- battered and exhausted from fighting the surf whipped-up by Hurricane Edouard -- from a probable watery grave.

In a short awards ceremony attended by political dignitaries, friends, family, and survivors, the recipients of the newly reconstituted Bermuda Bravery Awards lined up to accept cedar-framed certificates for Bravery and Life Saving from Governor Lord Waddington.

And it was all smiles at a pool-side reception afterwards -- a far cry from the Court Street mob scene ambulance attendants Charles Wesley Wilson and Dewilton (Butch) Brimmer encountered the March 1994 night they earned their bravery awards.

"We were responding to a call that someone had been shot,'' Mr. Brimmer recalled.

"When we got there Fire and Police couldn't get in and the area had been sealed off because the crowd was so big. We knew somebody had been shot and was lying there somewhere in the middle of this mini riot.

"So we just drove our vehicle through the crowd -- they just parted for us and we spotted the victim lying there, full of holes and in a pool of blood.

"I can tell you now,'' says Mr. Brimmer, "I don't know if I'd do it again; with knives all around your head and all the fighting...'' Adds double award winner Mr. Wilson: "You remember the famous knife scene in Crocodile Dundee? Well I saw a knives that big in the crowd.'' "We were both very, very nervous but we were in that mob and from there it was a load and go situation,'' says Mr. Brimmer.

Forty-one-year-old life-saving award winner Michael Kelly remembers a routine drive ending in near tragedy on October 25, 1993, the day he turned his car onto St. Anne's Road, Southampton, and saw a woman on the ground, lying prone before a Rottweiler dog.

"I thought he (the dog) had the woman, so I jumped out and ran over and that's when I saw the child. The dog had it by the head.

"You don't have time to think,'' he said. "I just kicked the dog in the throat and it let go of the child.'' Eighteen-month-old Dante Brown -- bleeding from head wounds that would require over 400 stitches to close and slipping in and out of consciousness -- was rushed to hospital.

Fully recovered, Dante yesterday took his place among the guests of honour at the hero's reception.

The awards ceremony marks the return of the Bermuda Bravery Awards and the Awards Association executive, which lapsed in the early 1990s following a 15-year commitment to honouring Bermudians who have gone beyond the call of duty and risked their lives for others.

Among the those receiving awards last night were: Donald Astwood for bravery; Frederick Butterfield for bravery; Stirling Smith for life saving; Freddie Smith for life saving; Sgt. Paul Surju for life saving; Darren (Butch) Burchall for bravery; Glen Davies for life saving and bravery; Jason Hansford-Smith for life saving; Huw Morris for bravery; James Morrison for bravery; Jamie Pedro for bravery; Richard Forehead for bravery; Reinosito Amores for life saving; and P.c. Scott Drysdale for life saving.