LITTLE Tarik Lloyd Coombs is a lifesaver - the cool-headed four-year-old raised the alarm as his diabetic mother was just minutes away from slipping into a potentially deadly coma.

Mum Allyson Lloyd Coombs, 40, had fallen into a serious hyperglycaemic state at their flat in Beaufort Road, St Julians, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Tarik was awoken by the sound of his delirious mother shouting and shaking in her bed as her insulin fell to a life-threatening level at about 2.30am.

The quick-thinking youngster, who will start school at St Julians Primary in two weeks' time, tried to wake his next door neighbours but when he could not get a response he went to the flat of a family friend Lindsey Hayes, who lives TEN floors below.

After dressing himself, Tarik, who is just three foot tall, picked up his toy plastic rake so he could reach the buttons on the lift. He then knocked on Mrs Hayes' door and told her: "Mummy is not very well."

Mrs Hayes and Tarik rushed up to her friend's flat and dialled 999. The paramedics arrived and gave Ms Lloyd Coombs the insulin injection that saved her life. She did not require hospital treatment.

Ms Lloyd Coombs, who cannot remember the dramatic incident until the paramedics were about to leave, said: "I have always loved him to bits and always will. I am very, very proud of him."

Mrs Lloyd Coombs has lived with insulin-dependent diabetes since she was ten years old. She has to inject herself with insulin four times a day - once before each meal and then once at night.

She added: "If he had not done what he did I would have gone into a coma and who knows what would have happened. The paramedics have said he should get some sort of award for what he did."

"He was so calm," said Mrs Hayes, 54. "He must have such a cool head on young shoulders. To have the presence of mind to not only know his mother needed help, but to realise that he could not reach the buttons on the lift and to get the plastic rake, is amazing.

"When I first saw him he was so calm that I thought his mother must have sent him down here but when I got to the flat Allyson was completely out of it. He is a real gem."