Tauranga Senior Constable Deane O'Connor has received a NZ Police Association Bravery Award.
Prime Minister John Key tweeted about handing the award to Mr O'Connor from the ceremony in Wellington this afternoon.
Mr Key tweeted: "A humbling experience presenting Senior Constable Deane O'Connor with the NZ Police Association Bravery Award.''
Mr Key also posted a picture of the two of them at the ceremony.
The Police Association Bravery Awards are unique in that they represent recognition of an outstanding act of bravery by an officer's peers.
Police Association president Greg O'Connor said Senior Constable O'Connor showed extraordinary courage in leaping from a bridge, at nightfall, into the dark waters of Tauranga to rescue crash survivor Ashley Donkersley. Read more about Mr O'Connor's rescue here, in a feature written when Mr O'Connor was named Bay of Plenty Times' Person fo the Year.