A nine-year-old girl from Colne has been hailed a hero after she rang for an ambulance while her mother lay collapsed on their kitchen floor.

Lilly Wills, of East Street, woke at about 5am on September 29 to shouts from downstairs before rushing into the kitchen where she found mum Rachel buckled over in agonising pain calling for her to get help.

“She was so brave, and when she came down I thought ‘thank God Lilly is here to phone the ambulance’,” Rachel, 35, said.

“God knows what would have happened if I was on my own. I was absolutely desperate for Lilly to wake up.”

Having suffered with a compressed nerve for a few weeks, Rachel had fallen over in pain, slipping a disc as she hit the floor.

Finding her mum helpless and unable to move, Lilly fetched some pillows and rang for an ambulance, telling them everything they needed to know while putting their pet dog away and calming down her twin brother, Royston.

“I knew all the answers to the questions, like my address, what number I was calling from and what my mum is called, how old is she and her date of birth,” said Lilly, a pupil at St Helen’s Primary School, in Bluntisham.

“I was quite nervous but alright because I heard them switch the phone over to someone that was child-friendly and they made me calmer.”

Lilly also rang her uncle to let him know what had happened, and stayed on the phone to the emergency operator while she kept her mum comfortable.

“I was speaking to the person on the phone, and they asked me if she was breathing and if she was alert and they said if she feels sick to turn her on her side.”

Rachel’s pain was so bad, she was kept in Hinchingbrooke Hospital for a week, and told she might need surgery in the future.

“The pain was absolutely horrendous and horrible – she was screaming out and had to have morphine when the ambulance arrived,” Lilly’s grandmother, Jocelyn Leggett, told The Hunts Post.

“She was heavily sedated while she was in hospital.”

Now back home, Rachel says she wouldn’t have been able to get help without Lilly.

“I was so proud of her and just thought what an amazing, grown-up daughter,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Lilly. She was absolutely amazing.”