AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD girl kept home from school with a throat infection left her sick bed to help rescue a neighbour from a bedroom blaze.

Jessica Foskett was enlisted to help a shocked resident out of a first floor window by her dad - himself an off-duty fireman who had popped home for lunch.

Jessica rushed into action after smoke was seen billowing from a house across the street from her home in Precosa Road, Botley.

Jessica, a pupil at Wildern School in Hedge End, found a ladder for the neighbour to climb down. She said of the rescue yesterday: "I was pretty calm when I thought I would be panicked."

It was father-of-two John, a sub-officer with the Southampton International Airport-based fire service, who first saw the smoke as he was leaving to return to work. He banged on the front door and window of the house.

A night-shift worker, who had been catching up with his sleep upstairs, was awoken by the noise and escaped to safety out of the window using Jessica's ladder.

Modest John, 37, said: "It was just coincidence that I happen to be in the fire service. My training wasn't necessarily needed.

The rescued man, a guest at the house who has declined to be named, did not need hospital treatment.