A GREAT grandmother has spent several days in intensive care after an unprovoked attack by a woman at a Stretford bus stop.

It was only the actions of a group of passing schoolboys who dragged the woman off 78-years-old Patricia Reilly which stopped the attack being much worse, say her family.

And they are calling for action before something similar happens again.

The incident happened as Patricia, a widow, was at a bus stop on Edge Lane, near Longford Park, on November 3 at about 3.30pm.

She was thrown against a wall and hurled to the floor by her attacker and suffered a broken elbow and shoulder and damage to the top of her hip.

She is now recovering in hospital Her attacker was arrested and has voluntarily sectioned herself for 28 days.

Patricia's daughter-in-law Margaret Reilly told SUM: "Patricia wants to thank the lads who helped her because if it wasn't for them things could have been a lot worse.

"Now as a family all we want to do is make people aware that there are patients like this in the community. There needs to be awareness about these issues - this sort of thing shouldn't happen in a modern society.

"I know there's a need for care in the community projects but you've got to ask the question about where the line is drawn.

"If someone can get injured like this there's clearly a liability for things to go wrong and we want to let other people know the risk."

The family have been told that the woman's husband was with her shortly before the incident but lost her as they were walking through the park.

Margaret explained: "We understand the woman's family have been left devastated by what's happened to my mother in law.

"Patricia says she doesn't blame the lady because she's mentally ill and doesn't know what she's doing. But she just hopes it doesn't happen again and has been left very frightened.

She added: "They can't do a lot with the shoulder, her elbow has had a steel plate on it and they've also operated on her hip.

"Patricia is going to be in hospital for quite a few weeks and she needs to have treatment to get her walking again -with her being 78-years-old it's obviously going to take her quite a while to recover."

The Reilly family have been informed by Trafford police after a review the woman could be released back into the community.

Director Michael Howlett, from mental health charity the Zito Trust, said: "I think there needs to be a full investigation into what happened.

"These attacks are becoming quite common and they are usually as a consequence of people not taking their medication."

He added: "Community care depends on people following treatment plans for it to work and all too often people are not supervised effectively enough.

"The mental health trust needs to look at the evidence very carefully because if this woman has a history of violence anything could happen next."

The Trafford Mental Health NHS Trust said it was unable to confirm or deny whether the woman was a patient of the Trust.

DO you know the boys who helped Mrs Reilly? Contact Simon Greenhalgh on 0161 908 3380 or by email at sgreenhalgh@messengergrp.co.uk