PARAMEDICS were today praised for saving the life of a teenager who suffered multiple stab wounds during an incident in Nelson last night.

Staff at Burnley General Hospital sent a note praising the Nelson ambulance crew's efforts to save 19-year-old Shane Halstead.

He lost a lot of blood after suffering wounds to the side of his head, neck and arm.

A spokesman for Lancashire ambulance service said: "The man's life was saved by the paramedics." The incident happened on the day that the results of a nationwide knives amnesty were announced. More than 1,000 blades were handed in in East Lancashire.

Paramedics Damian Jolly and Phillip White were called to a house in Marsden Hall Road at around 10.25pm. Mr Halstead was treated at the scene and in the ambulance on the way back to the hospital, which was put on stand-by because of the seriousness of the injuries.

Gordon Rolfe, head of the ambulance service in Pendle, said: "They did their job and dealt with the patient in a professional manner.

"They put a drip in to replace the fluids that the patient was losing through his wounds."

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