A MOTHER has thanked her friend and the emergency services for saving her toddler's life after he was found unconscious in a garden pond.

Becky Cross, 25, yesterday relived the moment her 22-month-old son stopped breathing for six minutes after being pulled from the water by her friend Lynn Reeves.

Little Harry had been playing with his four-year-old brother Jack and Lynn's two young children Drew and Connor at Lynn's home in Lime Tree Avenue, Malton, North Yorkshire, when the incident happened.

Harry had sneaked out of the house without being noticed and managed to get into the screened-off pond through a broken fence-post.

It was 24-year-old Lynn who found him floating in the 2ft-deep water and pulled him out.

On seeing her son's lifeless body, Becky, of Greengate, Malton, said she thought he was dead. "I noticed Harry on the floor and started screaming 'No, no, no'," she said.

Police spokesman Ron Johnson said Lynn's knowledge of first aid and the professional response of the emergency services that followed saved Harry's life.

Lynn's only medical training was three sessions at a first aid course at college, but she immediately began resuscitation while Becky dialled 999.

The call was taken in the police control room at Newby Wiske by control room operator Greg Morrison.

"When the call came in Becky was shouting 'my baby's dead'," said Greg, 33, from Darlington.

Having learned first aid when working as a police officer in South Africa, he offered advice and encouragement to Becky, while Lynn carried on the CPR.

Amazingly, Harry began to breathe again after six minutes, paramedics arrived and he was taken by air ambulance to intensive care at Leeds General Infirmary.

Little more than a week after the accident, Harry has made a full recovery and Becky said he is back to being a little monster and full of beans. Yesterday she and Harry's father Paul Shepherd thanked all those involved in saving their son's life.