The police officer who confronted and shot the Manhattan attack suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, has been lauded as “a hero” who “stopped the carnage”.

NYPD officer Ryan Nash was reportedly responding to a report of a suicidal 17-year-old girl at a school in lower Manhattan when a rental truck started ploughing through people on a bicycle lane yesterday.

Mr Nash, 28, rushed to the scene as the first reports of the terror attack, which killed eight people and injured 11, came through, according to the New York Daily News.

By the time he reached the area, Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbek national, had crashed into a school bus injuring two adults and two children, and fled on foot. He was brandishing two guns, which later turned out to be a pellet gun and paintball pistol.

Mr Nash tracked down Saipov and confronted him, ordering him to drop the weapons before shooting him in the stomach.

Saipov survived the wound and has been arrested in relation to the attack.

James O'Neill, the NYPD Commissioner, praised the officer’s response at a press conference yesterday following the attack.