A WOMAN is nursing a broken ankle after she threw herself at a baby's pram to stop it hurtling into traffic on a busy main road.

Last night, Rana Coates played down her heroics, saying she did what anyone else would have done to save the baby's life.

The 38-year-old mother-of-three had been watching out of the window of a barbers, in her home village of Sedgefield, in County Durham, when she saw the pram start to roll down a hill towards traffic.

The baby's mother had momentarily lost her grip on the buggy as she looked at a menu in the window of a nearby restaurant.

Mrs Coates immediately leapt to the rescue, dashing out of the barbers and catching the pram moments before it rolled into the road.

Unfortunately, she fell over on to her ankle at the same time, snapping the bone.

She said: "I just didn't think. Call it a mother's instinct. I saw what had happened and reacted. I ran after it and grabbed it just as it got to the bottom of the hill.

"I have never run so fast in my life. In fact I did not think I could run that fast. I just felt so sorry for the mother because she was so upset. She could not help what happened.''

Mrs Coates, who lives in Pine Ridge, went to hospital after the incident, at 9.15am on Friday, and will be in plaster for the next six weeks.

She said: "It was not very visible and the road was extremely busy.

"It had taken me five minutes to get across it on the way to the barbers, so who knows what would have happened.

"I rolled over on my ankle just as I got to the bottom of the hill and I felt something pop, but I would much rather it be me like this than the baby being hurt."