Injured pensioner rescued after six days at bottom of stairs

5:21pm Monday 3rd December 2007

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A pensioner was rescued by hero neighbours after she lay at the bottom of her stairs unable to move for six days.

Vera Dann, 70, was just hours from death when her newsagent and freinds burst in to her Brighton home to save her.

Incredibly, proud Vera had refused help in the days leading to her discovery, reassuring people she was ok through her letterbox as she lay with a broken hip.

The amazing story unfolded after Vera, of Quebec Street, Brighton, visited her newsagents to buy a pint of milk.

Vera, who used to work in a laundrette in Whitehawk, is well known for her knowledge of goings on in Hanover and regular-as-clockwork visits to Guyatri News on Southover Street.

Owner Andy Patel, 45, said: "She comes in at 11.30am and 4.30pm every day and stays to talk for an hour or more.

"She knows everybody. She's a great character.

"When she came in last Wednesday she had a little fall on the steps and I said I'd call her an ambulance but she insisted that she just had a blister.

"She bought a pint of milk and went home but didn't come back in the afternoon as usual.

"Then I heard she'd had another fall on the way back to her house but had told the post man who tried to help her that she was fine."

When Vera didn't come back to the shop the following morning Mr Patel went round to her house.

"I called through the letter box. From a distance she said she was fine, just busy, and couldn't answer the door.

"The next morning she still hadn't visited the shop so I went back. I called to her again but this time she said she was downstairs.

"I told her I wanted to drop off some milk and bread but she said she didn't need it and she was fine."

Rupert Alexander, 40, a teacher and neighbour of Vera's said: "It was very obvious something was wrong. She is out and about all the time usually.

"She's at the newsagents everyday and can tell you anything from who is having a baby to who is getting married.

"It was very odd not to see her." By Monday a group of neighbours were so worried they were taking it in turns to call on Vera.

Christine Filburn, 68, also from Quebec Road said: "We were all calling through the letter box.

"We'd say 'are you ok?' and she'd say 'yes I'm fine' and she'd tell us to go away."

Newsagent, Mr Patel, has a bizarre history of rescuing pensioners. He was commended by police last March when he ended an 80-year-old woman's ten-day wait for help after a fall.

"By the weekend Vera started to sound more distant and really not very well," said Mr Patel.

Eventually one of the neighbours who had a spare key to her house agreed that they should go in despite Vera's claims that she was fine.

When the group entered her house they found her on the floor at the bottom of the stairs with the pint of milk she'd bought nearly a week ago.

Mr Patel said: "She was ice cold, dehydrated and could barely speak yet she was still saying she was fine."

Paramedics rushed the pensioner to Royal Sussex Hospital claiming she would have died within a day had she not been found.

Vera is now recovering in the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.