A TWO-year-old girl owes her life to her hero brother who raised the alarm when she fell in a garden pond.

Amelia Isherwood was pulled from the fish pond at the rear of her grandparents’ home by her mum who was alerted by her four-year-old brother Jamie’s desperate screams.

The Leigh St Gabriel’s nursery pupil had discovered his sister floating under the surface of the 5ft-deep pond.

Amelia had wandered off while relatives enjoyed a barbecue in the front garden.

Mum, Natalie Cope, aged 25, of Westminster Drive, Higher Folds, Leigh, said: “We had locked the patio door but left the side gate unsecured when I took the dog for a walk with my mum and Amelia must have wandered into the back garden.

“We had just arrived back when I heard Jamie screaming hysterically. I followed him and saw Amelia submerged and lying face-up, “I was screaming but pulled her out, bent her over and gave her a good whack on the back and she coughed. She had swallowed loads of water.”

Natalie’s sister-in-law Suzanne Churnside and dad Gary Cope helped to resuscitate Amelia and a neighbour with nursing experience took over until paramedics arrived and she was taken to Royal Bolton Hospital.

There Amelia was placed in the high dependency unit and constantly monitored until she was declared well enough to return home on Monday afternoon.

Mrs Cope, who broke her finger during the rescue, said: “Jamie was a real hero. He knew something wasn’t right.

“We call Jamie ‘miracle’ because he was born three months premature, spent four months in hospital and contracted meningitis at five months.

"Now he calls himself ‘miracle hero’ and I suppose I really do have two little miracles. It just shows you have to have eyes in the back of your head when children are playing and this might serve as a warning.

“Fortunately it didn’t end in tragedy.”