A 10-YEAR-OLD girl caused a stir after getting stuck fast 20ft up a tree.

Isabella Conroy had embarked on the Sunday afternoon ascent simply to see how far she could get, but, like many tree-climbing youngsters, she discovered going up was a lot less challenging than coming down.

After a frightening 40 minutes clinging to the tree outside her Parkstone home, she was finally rescued by Dorset Fire and Rescue Service firefighters.

Her rescue was made a little more tricky because the plucky youngster is deaf and communicates by lip-reading, but the dense tree made this impossible.

Mum Sam said: “She climbs it a bit, but never that far up. It was quite frightening for her.

“She’s fine now, but she was a bit embarrassed at the time – especially as there were about 30 people from the neighbourhood watching the rescue.”

In what turned out to be one of his more unusual shouts, incident commander Stuart Bellingham said: “She was stuck 20ft up, which isn’t particularly high for us but I’m sure it felt a lot higher to her.”

Isabella’s dad had climbed up to reassure her until firefighters arrived.

Mr Bellingham said: “We don’t want children to stop climbing trees – it is a natural thing to want to do, but they should never go too high, ensure they can always get down and make sure they are not climbing alone so if they do get stuck, someone can go for help.”