A nine-year-old girl from North Cheam, who saved her grandmother's life as she started to slip into a diabetic coma, is being hailed a heroine.

It was only Rebecca Marsham's quick thinking that pulled Jean Cordery back from the brink of death after her blood sugar level dropped dangerously low.

Rebecca, who lives in Molesley Drive, realised instantly something was wrong when her grandmother became drowsy while they were watching television on Friday night.

She had not even intended to stay with Mrs Cordery that night but changed her mind at the last minute so she could watch the Jubilee baton parade from her house near Morden Park.

Rebecca ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a packet of Ryvitas, Penguins and rich tea biscuits and some milk a mix of foods containing sugar or carbohydrates.

She managed to feed Mrs Cordery, who had fallen into a semi-conscious state and was unable to focus her eyes, the right amounts of each type of food to gradually bring her blood sugar levels back to normal.

Rebecca did not even call an ambulance or even her parents who were at home that night, as she knew they would take too long to arrive to help her grandmother.

Eventually Mrs Cordery fell into a normal sleep, but woke around 3am to find her granddaughter still keeping watch over her.

"All I can remember is hearing Rebecca telling me to chew on my food after that the next thing I knew I had woken up and she was dozing with one eye open in the next room," said Mrs Cordery, 64, who was diagnosed with diabetes around three years ago.

Rebecca had left all the lights on and doors open in the house so her grandmother would not be confused when she woke up.

"I knew when her blood sugar gets down it's not very good and that she has two types of sleeping one which is normal and one which means something is wrong. So when she got sleepy I was very worried about her, " said Rebecca, who deliberately avoided taking her own asthma medicine that night because she knew it would make her drowsy.

Mrs Cordery was later told by her GP that had Rebecca not been there to help her, she would have been unlikely to wake up again.

"He said that because I was starting to lose my vision and my sugar was so low, that I wouldn't still be here now."

July 18, 2002 10:30