A Barnoldswick boy has been hailed a “little hero” after hearing screams for help from a badly bleeding woman.
Fourteen-year-old Dean Swarbrick, of Darnbrook Road, was on his way to a friend’s house when he heard cries coming from a remote stable block.
Dean, who goes to Park High School, Colne, was running late to meet his friend Sam Horrocks at his home in Priory Way and was using a shortcut he is not supposed to when he heard Carol Lewis’s “horrible screams”.
Dean, who was not sure whether a prank was being played on him at first, was worried and insistent enough to get Sam’s dad to take a look.
When they reached the stables at the end of Priory Way, in complete darkness and freezing temperatures, they found Carol motionless and a pool of blood on the floor.
She had fallen 12ft off a ladder on to a concrete floor from the upper part of the barn.
A grateful Carol (50), who had been unconscious and has had 10 staples in her head for the injury, said she was “extremely lucky”.
Carol said: “I don’t really remember anything of it but I do know I had a team of helpers.
“I remember going into the high loft for hay and putting the ladders up in daylight. Next I was coming around in the pitch black and shouting for help.
“I was really dizzy and had knocked myself out. Luckily I was heard. Apparently I had lost lots of blood but somehow I had managed to clamber on to the ladders from where I had fallen.
“I was absolutely freezing but was not lying directly on the concrete floor. The fleece I was wearing stopped the bleeding.
“It was really nice of Dean. He’s such a lovely lad. I’m forever grateful to him. He used his head and did well for a young lad on his own.”
Dean’s proud dad Andrew said: “Dean thought there was something really wrong and said please come and have a look.
“Dean was in shock. There was a big pool of blood and he couldn’t get the image out of his head. He did everything correctly. We are calling him the little hero at the moment.”