The Neighbourhood Safety Officer for Middlesbrough Council accidentally pricked his finger on a used needle while helping to resuscitate the man in the car park behind Iceland on Linthorpe Road.

The frightening incident happened on December 9 last year.

Taking up the story, Darren said: "I was with a colleague talking to a beggar outside Tesco Express on Linthorpe Road when a drug user I know ran up to me saying someone was out of it behind Iceland.

"We ran over and found a male unconscious with a heroin needle next to him. I asked the other drug user to move the needle to a safe place.

"The guy was someone we knew, we'd supported him in the past and had also taken enforcement action against him, he was a drinker and hadn't taken heroin for a long time as far as we knew.

"The other drug user offered to give him naloxone to bring him out of it so we tried half but nothing happened so we gave him the rest and as I've gone to put it back in its sheaf it was really dingy and low light beneath the building's overhang and I've somehow just slightly pricked myself.

"There were three trainee nurses there as well who were helping. When the ambulance arrived I went to the hospital with him and they asked him straight away if they could test him for X,Y and Z and he said fine..."

Two weeks later on Christmas Eve big-hearted Darren and his colleague were hosting a Christmas party organised off their own backs at World Buffet 2 for around 100 of Middlesbrough's most vulnerable people, including the homeless, beggars and victims of domestic abuse and their families.

And it was on that day of December 24 he received a phone call from James Cook University Hospital informing him that the man whose life he had saved had tested positive for Hepatitis-C.

Tragically the man, who was known to Darren through his work helping the most vulnerable people in Middlesbrough, died that same day on Christmas Eve.

Luckily after four months Darren was tested and received the news that he had not contracted the disease.

"It was a massive relief," he adds modestly.

For his actions, following which he declined to take a single day off work, and for organising the World Buffet 2 event for the vulnerable - and for always going above and beyond the call of duty, Darren has been named the latest Boro Hero by Middlesbrough Mayor Andy Preston.

Mr Preston said: "Darren's story is shocking and frightening but his actions and his attitude are inspiring and thank God it has the outcome it does for him.

"I can't praise highly enough the work Darren and his colleagues do day-in day-out to keep the public safe and to help the most vulnerable people in our town. He is a true Boro Hero and it's right we say thank you to him."