A diabetic grandmother from Morden was saved from certain death by her quick-thinking nine-year-old granddaughter who fed her with biscuits and milk after her blood sugar had dropped to a dangerous level.

Jean Cordery, 64, of Rougement Avenue, who suffers from chronic diabetes, a heart condition and arthritis, was nursed through the night by Becky Marshman.

Becky had only decided hours earlier to spend Friday night at her gran's home so she could watch the Golden Jubilee celebrations in nearby Morden Park.

Jean, who needs two daily shots of insulin to stay alive, complained of feeling tired at about 8.30pm and went to bed.

Concerned, Becky decided to join her and watch television in her bedroom.

When her gran began to fall asleep she was slipping into a diabetic coma Becky 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 and carbohydrates.

She managed to feed Jean, who was now semi-conscious and unable to see, the right amounts of each type of food to gradually raise her blood sugar levels.

Becky, from North Cheam, had not called an ambulance or even her parents, as she knew they would take too long to arrive to help her grandmother.

Eventually Jean fell into a normal sleep but woke around 4am to find her granddaughter still keeping watch.

"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 Jean who was diagnosed with diabetes about three years ago.

Becky had left all the lights on in the house so her grandmother would not be confused when she awoke.

"I knew that 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 Becky, who deliberately avoided taking her own asthma medicine that night because she knew it would make her drowsy.

Jean was later told by her GP that had Becky not been there to help she would have been unlikely to wake up again.

A spokesman for Diabetes UK said: "It sounds like the granddaughter did the right thing by giving her food. If she had gone unconscious she would have had to call an ambulance."

July 18, 2002 11:30