Ellie,11, is gran’s stair-fall angel

GUARDIAN angel . . . Ellie helped save her grandmother’s life

A QUICK-thinking schoolgirl has been praised by her grandmother for saving her life.

Anne Melia (65) says she is forever thankful that 11-year-old Ellie Anne Melia was close by when she suffered a horrific fall downstairs in the middle of the night that left her unconscious with a fractured skull.

Her granddaughter would not normally have been staying with her on a Wednesday night — but stayed composed in helping alert the emergency services.

“She found me in a pool of blood near the bottom of the stairs,” said Mrs Melia, of Knowl Street, Hollinwood. “The doctors said if she had not been there I would have been dead.”

The pair are very close and Ellie sleeps over at weekends and during school holidays. She had only stayed over that night because her mum Lindsey was working a night shift at a care home.

Mrs Melia has no recollection of what happened and can only remember waking up as paramedics put a brace around her neck.

She said: “She does not normally stay in the middle of the week but for some reason that night decided to stop. It’s fate really. I must have got up in the night. It was about 3am. I fell down the stairs from top to bottom.”

Despite her shock, Ellie calmly telephoned her uncle Gary so he could alert the emergency services. Then she let paramedics into her grandmother’s house.

She said: “Because my mum was working I was staying over. I was in bed and heard tumbling. I got up and found her at the bottom of the stairs. She was on her side and had blood coming from her mouth. I was scared but went and got my phone.”

Mrs Melia said: “They said she was a bit traumatised but it was good what she did. They told me I would definitely have been a goner. There would have been no one there without her. I’m really grateful. She really did save my life.

“If she had just ignored it, God knows what would have happened. I’m very close to my granddaughter and we get on really well.”

Mrs Melia spent a week in hospital and is now recovering at home. She still has a bump on the back of her head and severe bruising down one side.

St Margaret’s Primary School pupil Ellie has been round for tea to check on her grandmother every night since the accident.