A pensioner’s life was saved by her cat – after the clever pet clawed at a window and attracted the attention of a passerby.
Ellen Kay, 71, collapsed in the middle of the night and suffered head and spinal injuries after getting up to make herself a hot drink.
Her cat perched on the window sill at the front of her home and scratched at the window pane.
Newspaper boy Nathan Dunsire was struck by nine-year-old Sassie’s odd behaviour and decided to investigate.
Peering through the letterbox, he spotted Mrs Kay lying helpless on the floor, where she had been for three hours.
Police broke into the property and, after a week in hospital, Mrs Kay is recovering at home.
Nathan, 15, said: “I was delivering the morning paper and I walked up to the woman’s house.
“I saw the cat looking distressed, it was clawing the window and the blinds were still shut.
“I looked through the letterbox and saw her lying on the floor, I didn’t have my phone on me so I went to speak to her neighbour to see if they had the key.
“They didn’t so I ran home and told my mum, who called the police.”
Mrs Kay, of Kirkcaldy, had banged a broom on the floor in a desperate and unsuccessful bid to get attention.
Meeting Nathan for the first time, she said: “I’m so glad to meet you. I’m pleased to bits. I can’t thank you enough. Some might not have bothered.”
Nathan’s father, Brian, said of his son: “I’m very proud of him.
“You see too many stories of kids doing wrong. It’s good we have one of them doing right.”