Four-year-old girl bravely called 999 after her mum collapsed at home

A four-year-old girl whose parents had taught her to call 999 in an emergency was able to seek help when her mum collapsed at home.

The brave child dialled 999 when her mum lost consciousness at their home in the Cotswolds on 14 June.

She got through to a call handler working in Gloucestershire Police's Force Control Room, who then spoke to the child.

This week (27 October to 2 November) marks International Control Room Week and police have released parts of the call to highlight the fantastic work call handlers and control rooms do.

In this incident, the family had only recently moved address, and due to the shock of what had happened, the child was struggling to provide details of the address.

The call handler asked lots of questions to try and work out where she was or to find another adult.

The child's brother and dad were out at the time, and so the call handler asked her to go outside and shout for help from neighbours or passers-by, but unfortunately no-one was around.

The call handler hoped there was a vehicle parked on the driveway or others parked nearby, to try and get details from the registration, but the family car was also in use and the child was also understandably too scared to go outside alone.

She also asked the child to go upstairs to get a better look of the street from a window to see if she could see someone walking by, but unfortunately the street was empty.

The girl bravely continued to do and answer everything the call handler asked her to in a bid to help her mum, who had collapsed after having complications with her pregnancy.

Thankfully the woman regained consciousness after around 10 minutes and was able to speak to the call handler, and provide her address.

This was relayed to colleagues in the ambulance service and the call handler stayed on the phone to mum and daughter until paramedics arrived – which was only 17 minutes after the child first made the 999 call. Police officers also attended to support.

The woman was taken to hospital where she stayed for the day. She was induced on 16 June and gave birth the following day to a healthy baby girl.

On hearing of what the child had done, along with the great work of call handlers in the Force Control Room, Superintendent Anton Campbell arranged a special visit to Gloucestershire Police's Force Control Room in the summer.

He gave the child a couple of police teddy bears and a tour of the control room so that she could see behind the scenes of where her phone call was taken.

Supt Campbell said: "We wanted to recognise the calmness and bravery of a four-year old girl who was trying so hard to help her mum.

"The call handler did a fantastic job in attempting to get information from the child, to try and work out where she was.

"You can’t help but have a lump in the back of your throat when listening to the call because she was so brave given that she’d found her mum passed out.

"Because of the actions of both the child and the call handler, we were able to make sure that help got there and that the mum got the attention that she needed.

"It's amazing that a four-year-old has been able to call for help in an emergency situation, and I think it’s really important to have these conversations with your children about calling 999 for the emergency services when they urgently need help."

The child's mum said: "Because both of our children are involved in active sports and we travel frequently, we’ve always made it a priority to teach them basic safety measures, including how to call emergency services in different countries.

"We've had those conversations from early on, but we honestly didn’t expect our daughter, at just four years old, to recall it so clearly or act so bravely in a real situation.

"We're incredibly proud of her, and we hope this encourages other parents to have those early safety talks with their children too as you never know when it might make all the difference."