Four-year-old in Glendale, Arizona, saves her grandmother twice in a month

Twice in a month, Alice Novoa collapsed at her home in Glendale, Arizona, and both times her four-year-old granddaughter, also called Alice, got help to her. The first time the girl woke her grandfather. The second time she unlocked her grandmother’s phone, found his number and told him grandma would not wake up.

7 October 2026

A small girl with dark hair in a pink leopard-print dress holding the chain of a swing and smiling, with a woman’s arm beside her, under a blue sky.
Alice on the swings.
Photo: KNXV / Alice Novoa, via CNN Newsource

The first time, Alice Novoa passed out at home, hit her head and did not respond. Her granddaughter, Alice Ogle, who is four, went and woke her grandfather, who was asleep, and he called 911. Doctors later found that her grandmother had three brain aneurysms, which needed treatment straight away, ABC15 reported.

Her mother teaches her to call for help

After that, the girl’s mother taught her how to reach 911 and the adults she could trust in an emergency, according to the family.

Alice in a pink leopard-print dress standing on a rope climbing frame in a park, green grass and trees behind.
Alice at the park.
Photo: KNXV / Alice Novoa, via CNN Newsource

Three weeks later, she rings her grandfather

About three weeks later Alice was spending the night at her grandmother’s house when she found her unconscious on the floor outside a bedroom. She picked up her grandmother’s phone, unlocked it, found her grandfather’s contact and rang him to say she could not wake grandma. That call reached a neighbour, who used an emergency key to get into the house and called 911, and first responders came to the house.

Alice sitting on a sofa looking down at a phone in her hands, smiling, with a teenage girl sitting behind her.
Alice with a phone at home.
Photo: KNXV / Alice Novoa, via CNN Newsource
It’s pretty miraculous for a 4-year-old to really understand the situation and jump in and take control like that.A member of Alice’s family, to KNXV

Her grandmother said the girl had been calm and had known exactly whom to call.

She’s super brave. She’s my hero.Alice Novoa, to KNXV
Alice walking along a park path holding hands with her grandmother and a teenage girl, trees and a playground shade behind them.
Alice walking in the park with her family.
Photo: KNXV / Alice Novoa, via CNN Newsource

Her grandmother is recovering, and she credits her granddaughter with saving her life twice.

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Everything here, including the quotations, is from Cameron Polom’s report for ABC15 (KNXV) in Phoenix, published on 2 October 2026, and the KNXV report distributed by CNN Newsource on 3 October. The photographs are KNXV’s and Alice Novoa’s.
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