AS Mary O'Halloran cuddles her "little star" of a granddaughter she shudders at the thought of what might have been.

The brave seven-year-old from Stonehouse was being praised this week for helping to save her gran's life.

Little Catherine Cairney was being looked after at her home in Glencourt by Mrs O'Halloran when the elderly woman was struck down by a sudden viral infection. But the youngster put her own fears aside and kept her wits about her as she calmly called the emergency services.

Catherine then tended to the frightened woman as they waited together for the ambulance to arrive.

"I do not know what I would have done without her," said Mrs O'Halloran, 64. "It was horrible - it felt like I was dying,"

"It came straight out the blue and of course the more you panic the worse it gets. Catherine ran in and said 'you look really grey, I am going to call the ambulance'. She looked after me and sat down with me until the paramedics arrived and when they got here she held my hand and stayed with me while they were putting the needle in. "I would have been in a really bad way if she wasn't there. She is my little star."

Cool-headed Catherine, a pupil at the Rosary RC School in Beeches Green, even arranged to stay with a friend across the street and left a note on the door so her mother would know where she was.

Catherine's proud mum Maureen said: "My mother could have died if she hadn't used her head. I used to think when I was saying something to her that she didn't take anything in but this just shows she did."

As a treat for her quick thinking the family are taking Catherine away for a family holiday to Devon this week.