AN eight-year-old girl knew just what to do when her mother collapsed at their Richmond home.

Soren Seivers overcame her fear and distress to telephone her grandfather, who lives nearby, and her father, who was working away in Grimsby.

Her grandfather, Harry Thompson, dashed over to the house in Beechfield Road to find his daughter, Lorraine Seivers, unconscious on the bathroom floor.

An ambulance was summoned and she was rushed to the Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, where she underwent emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia.

The drama unfolded at about 9pm last Friday, when Mr Thompson answered the phone at his home in Maple Road.

"Soren was sobbing her little heart out, but she managed to tell me that her mother had collapsed in the bathroom and was very ill.

"She had also telephoned her father, who was away in Grimsby," said Mr Thompson, who runs an antiques business at The Bar.

Mrs Seivers, now recuperating at home, said she was extremely proud of her daughter, who had done exactly what she had been told to do in an emergency in spite of being very frightened.

Music fan Soren received her reward in the shape of a new flute from her grandfather.