A 10-year-old girl saves Grandma from a leak from a “silent killer.”

A 10-year-old girl who helped her grandmother discover a potentially fatal gas leak after learning about it at school has been praised for her “heroic” intervention.

Connie learned about the dangers of carbon monoxide at her school in Eccles and alerted Pauline after class.

Two days later, the appliance went off and it turned out there was a gas leak from the 79-year-old’s stove.

Pauline said her granddaughter’s actions “literally saved my life.”

Connie, now 11, attended a Crucial Crew workshop with St Mary’s RC Primary School in Eccles in March.

She was given a carbon monoxide (CO) detector to take with her, but as Connie already had two in her home, she gave it to grandmother Pauline, who lives in Cadishead.

Pauline had suffered “vertigo” attacks before the alarm was raised and the faulty cooker was removed by gas company Cadent.

She said the Cadent man told her if she hadn’t had the alarm she probably would have fallen asleep.

“I thought if this was a Friday night, no one would know or think about it until Monday, and then you’d be dead.” [Connie] literally saved my life.

“Silent Killer”

Pauline felt better almost immediately and the pair now want to raise awareness of the potential dangers of CO leaks because without the alarm, Pauline said she might not be here today.

“If she hadn’t gone to the Crucial Crew workshop, gotten the alarm and given it to me, who knows?” Pauline said.

Crucial Crew is an event run by emergency services across Greater Manchester to provide children with safety advice.

CO is a toxic gas that poses a serious health hazard when exposed and cannot be detected by smell, taste or sight.

According to Cadent, there are around 40 deaths from CO poisoning each year in England and Wales.

Pauline urged everyone, particularly those who are elderly or live alone, to ensure they have alarms and to monitor any unusual symptoms.

She said: “I know they say it’s the silent killer… but people don’t tend to think about carbon monoxide.”

“If you get dizzy spells from people my age, don’t just assume it’s old age.”

When asked how Connie felt after “saving her Nanna’s life,” she said “heroic” and “incredible.”

She added: “Don’t expect it not to happen to you, because it can.”

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