A LITTLE girl was today hailed a heroine after she calmly called an ambulance as her father fought for breath.

Five-year-old Alexandria Hodgson kept a cool head when father Malcolm suffered a panic attack at their home at Marshall Drive, in Brotton, east Cleveland.

With nobody else in the house, she dialled 999 and explained the situation to an ambulance worker.

Acting on the Wheatland Primary School pupil's instructions, a team of paramedics arrived just after the call was received at around 8pm on Monday.

When Alexandria had trouble letting them in, she pushed a set of keys through the letter box. Mr Hodgson, 57, recovered quickly and was later examined by a doctor, although he did not need hospital treatment.

The housing officer, who is currently on sick leave for anxiety, said: "My wife and son had gone out and I should have been putting Alex to bed when I found I couldn't breathe properly.

She was obviously worried, and the next thing I knew she was standing next to me with the phone dialling 999. It wasn't working, so I pressed the talk button to help her.

She just kept talking to the girl and was calm and didn't cry. She was a little gem-I don't know how I would have finished up if the paramedics hadn't come."

Tees East and North Yorkshire ambulance control assistant, Karen Grange, who answered the call, was full of praise for the youngster. "She was so wonderful," she said.

"She said she was holding her dad's hand and loosening his dressing gown to help him breathe more easily. I told her she was very clever and she said, 'I know, because I'm only five-and-three-quarters.'"

Mr Hodgson, who is married to Kay, a council finance officer, and has three grown-up sons from a previous marriage, said that far from boasting of her achievement, Alexandria is "taking the whole thing in her stride."

Nigel Metcalf, a spokesman for the ambulance service, said: "For one so young, she was quite brilliant. She must have been very upset but she managed to provide our control with full details of her address."

Updated: 16.03 Tuesday, April 3