TWO quick-thinking Hampshire children have been hailed as heroes for saving their grandmother's life, after she suffered a massive stroke and two fits.

Brother and sister Rhys Chapman, three, and Kirsty Garnham, ten, dialled 999 when 70-year-old Doreen Garnham collapsed in her bedroom.

Mrs Garnham had been babysitting for the children because their mother was in hospital with pneumonia.

She was putting Rhys to bed at her home in Colne Avenue, Millbrook, Southampton, when she had a stroke and hit her head on the cabinet. The boy rushed downstairs to tell his sister.

Cool-headed Kirsty immediately phoned 999 and then contacted her mother at the General Hospital.

Paramedics arrived within minutes and took Mrs Garnham to the hospital where she is now recovering.

The youngsters' mother, Lesley Garnham, said: "I am so proud of them because they acted so quickly and kept their cool.

"When I received the phone call at the hospital I panicked because I knew they were on their own and there was nothing I could do.

"I rang one of my sisters, Carol Penman, who lives nearby and she went round to the house but by then the ambulance staff had everything in hand."

Lesley's other sister, Christine Honour, said no neighbours were in at the time to help the youngsters.

She added: "What they did was very brave and they saved her life.

"An adult may have started worrying and not called the emergency services in time.

"I dread to think what may have happened to my mother if my niece and nephew had not dialled for help because she could have died."

Mrs Honour, of Mercury Close, Lordshill, said she wrote down the phone number at the hospital where her sister was staying and Kirsty must have copied it down.

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