I got through my door and said, ‘I’ve just saved a little girl’s life’. Then burst into tears

eyes fixed, unresponsive. I checked for a pulse and there wasn’t one so I dropped on my knees and started giving her CPR.

“You do these first aid courses but you never think it’s going to be you.

“The family was all around crying and screaming, ‘save her life, save my daughter’s life, don’t let her die.’

“I think my training as a teacher kicked in. I blocked it all out and focused on what I was doing.

“For them to have so much faith in me ... her life was in my hands.

“The family were screaming, ‘save her life – don’t let my daughter die.’ After about minute Maryam took her first breath – but Frances knew the little girl was not out of the woods yet.

“I took all her clothes off because she was freezing and we got blankets and rushed her inside.

“I just kept pressing on her tummy and making her be sick because she was full of water from being under for so long. I think she was sick six times.

“Then she started crying, which was the best thing in the world. “Afterwards – when the police and paramedics arrived – I just kind of quietly disappeared back home. “I got through the door and said, ‘I’ve just saved a little girl’s life.’ Then I burst into tears.” Maryam’s father, Hassan Ugradar, said “words can not express” how thankful he and his wife are to their heroine neighbour. “No matter how many times we actually thank her it’s not enough,” he said. “She saved my daughter’s life.” Hassan was working at his job as a general manager of a cinema in Bradford when he got a terrifying phone call from his sister. “All I could hear was tears and screams in the background. “She said that Maryam was not breathing, she fell into a pond in the rear garden. “With that literally I just shot out of work straight away to try and get home. To this day I do not know any aspect of that journey.” Hassan’s wife, sister and grandparents were all at the family’s Mirfield home. The siblings were playing

No matter how many times we actually thank her it’s not enough. She saved my daughter

in the back garden and when the older ones decided to come inside, Maryam went to look at the fish in the garden’s shallow pond.

The three-year-old tipped forward and fell face first into the water.

Hassan said: “It turned out that she ended up being in there for twoand-a-half to three minutes by the time it was brought to my wife’s and sister’s attention.

“They went straight out, got her out, and she was literally breathless. There was nothing there to her. The way they described it was – it was like pulling a body out.

“My sister clicked on that Frances, living across the road, is a teacher and her gut feeling was she will most likely be aware of first aid.

“She ran over the road and Frances instantly shot across and took over from my wife.

“Numerous attempts later she managed to get her round. My daughter coughed up, woke up and started breathing.”

The time between Maryam falling in the water and breathing again was five minutes.

Hassan knows this for a fact because he had to review the house’s CCTV so he could give doctors treating his daughter accurate information.

When the paramedics arrived they transported Maryam to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, where she remained overnight.

Against all the odds, the threeyear-old made a full recovery.

Hassan said: “She’s a normal little child now – running around. We call her our miracle girl.

“She doesn’t really go near the pond on her own. When you ask her what happened she says ‘I was swimming with the fish.’ That’s the way she sees it.

“If it wasn’t for Frances my daughter might not be here today.”

For her heroic actions Frances has been awarded the Royal Humane Society Resuscitation Certificate and the nurse at her school nominated her as a British Heart Foundation CPR Hero.

Frances, though, said the key point to come out of all this should be the importance of knowing CPR.

She explained: “I am proud of how I reacted but it’s more about showing the importance of CPR.

“The next day at school I thanked the headteacher for allowing me to do a first aid course.

“If I didn’t know it, it could have been much worse.

“I don’t know if anybody else on the street would have known what to do. If more people had the tools then we could save more and more lives.”