A SCHOOLGIRL was saved from drowning by her ten-year-old friend as she lay unconscious, face down in a stream.

Samantha Billington (13), of Eden Avenue, Edenfield, plunged headlong into the brook behind Stubbins Primary School, when a tree rope swing she was playing on snapped.

Quick-thinking Scarlett Yates ran to the water and carefully eased Samantha's head on to a rock, before fetching help.

By the time Scarlett returned with her mum's boyfriend, Alan Jolly, Samantha had managed to climb out of the water, despite having a broken pelvis and concussion.

Emergency teams arrived soon after the incident on Monday (April 22) evening, and Samantha was stretchered to an ambulance by firefighters. She was treated at Fairfield General Hospital for the fracture, hypothermia and other less-serious injuries, and is expected home next week.

Samantha's mum, Jayne, said: "We are so grateful to Scarlett. If she hadn't been there, Samantha would probably have drowned.

"It's a good job she got help so quickly because Sam was hypothermic. It must have been some sort of sixth sense that made her get out of the water while they were getting help."

The pair climbed over a barrier to get to the swing, and Mrs Billington warned other families about the dangers posed to children playing at the beauty spot. "The girls shouldn't have been there but children sometimes go where they shouldn't," she said.

"It is a dangerous area and there certainly shouldn't have been a rope swing there."

Samantha, a pupil at Haslingden High School, said: "I don't remember anything about what happened until Scarlett came running down with Alan. I don't know what would have happened without her."

The young actress, who has appeared in programmes such as Coronation Street, Dalziel and Pascoe and Tough Love, missed a casting audition as a result of the accident.

"I'm not that disappointed because there will be other auditions and I might not have got it anyway," she said.

Stubbins Primary pupil Scarlett was rewarded for her actions with the gift of a necklace from Samantha's mum.