A young girl’s bravery after saving her mother’s life when she suffered a heart attack while driving has been commended by paramedics.
Alice Trott, 10, dialled 999 and calmly told call handlers what had happened to her mum.
The life-or-death emergency took place on a roadside, so Alice also flagged down a lorry driver for further help.
Now the family has been reunited with the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) staff who helped and Alice has been given a bravery certificate.
Mum Rachel Radmore-Mann, 40, said: “I am so proud of Alice and over the moon that she’s been recognised for her bravery that day.
“Thanks to her and the SECAmb team, I’ll now get to walk down the aisle and marry my partner of 19 years.”
Ms Radmore-Mann, a florist from St Mary’s Bay on Romney Marsh, suffered a major heart attack while driving Alice and her younger daughter, Emily, during the Easter holiday in April.
She began to experience nausea, jaw pain, and severe chest pain, and pulled the car over into a lay-by in Ashford.
‘I am so proud of Alice and over the moon that she’s been recognised for her bravery that day…’
Alice then called the ambulance and managed to get the lorry driver to pull over.
She calmly spoke on the phone to emergency medical advisers Cameron Hillman-Smith and Keira Bass, clearly describing her mum’s symptoms and the severity of the pain.
Emergency care support worker Rachael Nicholson-Root and paramedic Rachel Lees arrived on scene and performed an electrocardiogram (ECG). This confirmed that Rachel was having a serious heart attack.
Ms Lees said: “It really was a miracle that Alice was in the car with her mum that day and that she knew exactly what to do. Her quick thinking was the difference between life and death.”
Ms Radmore-Mann was taken under blue lights to the specialist Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PPCI) centre at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.
There, surgeons discovered a blockage in a major artery carrying oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
Ms Radmore-Mann received the urgent treatment she needed and was discharged just four days later.
The family were recently invited to the Ashford Make Ready Centre to be reunited with the emergency team involved in Rachel’s care.
During the visit, Alice was presented with a certificate of bravery.
