A FOUR-year-old girl came to the rescue when her mother fell down the stairs, knocking herself unconscious.

Little Emily Halford did not cry or panic when she heard a crash and saw her mother, Catherine, lying at the foot of the stairs.

Instead, she took her mother's mobile phone from her pocket and called her grandma for help.

Mrs Halford, a full-time mother-of-four, from Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, said: "Emily had seen the phone before because my youngest child, Joseph, sometimes has hold of it.

"I'd told Emily that he shouldn't play with it and that the green button rings the last person you called.

"She had remembered this, so pressed the button and she got through to my mum.

"She asked Emily if everything was okay and she told her, 'mummy's fallen down the stairs and is sleeping'."

As Emily spoke to her granma, her granddad called for the police and ambulance service on his mobile phone.

Mrs Halford said: "All I remember is feeling dizzy at the top of the stairs.

"The next I knew, I was waking up at the bottom looking up at policemen and paramedics."

Mrs Halford, 30, had hit her head on the child safety gate at the bottom of the stairs.

Emily had been watching children's programmes in the other room with her two-year-old sister, Caitlin.

"I must have been unconscious for about five minutes, though it could have been much worse if it hadn't have been for Emily," said Mrs Halford.

"The police and paramedics said she was a very clever girl and brave to stay as calm as she did."

Mrs Halford was taken by ambulance to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

It is believed low blood pressure and sugar levels caused her to faint.

Fortunately, she did not sustain any serious injuries and is only nursing bruises.

"I would like to thank the police and paramedics who were brilliant with me and Emily," said Mrs Halford.

"I cannot praise them enough."