A ten-year-old girl from Falmouth contacted coastguards in the middle of the night after hearing shouts for help coming from her bedroom window.

Summer Eva said she couldn't sleep when she heard the cries for help coming from Penryn River during the early hours of Sunday morning last week. 

Summer, whose house overlooks the river, told the Packet: "I was watching a film quite late and then I couldn't sleep because I was really hot.

"It was around one in the morning when I heard someone yelling 'help'.

"It sounded like they were down the road and saying 'seal', so I thought it was just someone drunk. But then after a while it sounded like 'help me'.

Rather than waking her mum, Summer 'Googled' the number for the coastguards and made the phone call to report what she could hear.

"I could see flashing lights and they said they were already on their way," she added.

READ MORE: A paddle board hero, a mud rescue and a trapped dog in busy week for coastguards

Falmouth Packet:

Summer pointing in the direction she heard the cries for help from in Penryn River

At 12.55am the Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team inshore lifeboat and the larger all-weather lifeboat were launched in response to several reports of shouts for help being heard from Penryn River, near Greenbank.

The casualty that the team were called out to had capsized his tender while returning to his vessel from Flushing.

The inshore lifeboat soon found him on a pontoon, having been helped there from the water by a member of the public, who had launched a paddle board to help him. He was then taken to hospital while the rescuer was taken home.

A spokesperson from Falmouth Coastguard Rescue Team said: "We had multiple calls but every call taken certainly assists building up the ‘information picture’, ensuring the most appropriate units are tasked - so Summer 100 per cent did the correct thing by calling."

READ MORE: Penryn cries for help mark first of three shouts in 12 hours for Falmouth RNLI

Summer's mum, Emma Eva, said: "I didn't know anything about it until the morning! She didn't come and get me.

"I'm a hairdresser and am really busy so have been having really early nights.

"Our house faces over the river. It's not the first time we've had this, we've been woken up before by people in trouble in the river.

"Luckily that night I'd left her windows open because it was really warm in the house.

"I was quite shocked in the morning when she filled me in on what I'd missed.

"I was really really proud of her when she first told me what had happened. Then afterwards I thought 'oh bless her, she's done that all by herself, not wanting to wake me up'.

"I said to her 'I'm so proud of you and what you did but next time please do come and wake me!"