THOUGHTFUL cinema workers stepped in with a kind gesture after a two-year-old girl began struggling to breathe during a film and was taken to A&E.

Daniel Colman and his loved ones were forced to stop watching the highly-anticipated Space Jam: A New Legacy and leave Cineworld Basildon, when his youngster Amelia had an “episode” during their viewing.

Having spotted Amelia bursting into tears as she left the venue, at Festival Leisure, the staff rushed over to make sure she was OK.

After hearing about their ordeal, much to Mr Colman’s surprise, the family were offered a full refund on their tickets, food and drinks - which came to a total of around £70.

Echo:

The 32-year-old from Basildon, said: “Every time she is ill it just goes to her chest, she struggles to breathe and we have to take her to hospital.

“We took our daughters Amelia and Olivia, who is four, to the cinema and had got about an hour through when she started to have breathing difficulties.

“She was having an episode mid-film, starting to cough. She was sitting on my wife Carly’s lap and where this has happened before she could monitor her breathing.

“But after half an hour she got worse. She burst out crying as we were leaving where she wanted to carry on watching it and wanted to watch Bugs Bunny.

“The staff saw her and came over, offering to give us a refund on everything.”

Echo:

Read more:

Boy, 13, brutally punched in the face during daylight attack in street

The generosity of the staff came despite the family being at least three quarters of the way through their film - and certainly did not go unnoticed.

Mr Colman has since taken to social media to applaud the team for their help, in what was only his daughter’s second time at the cinema.

He continued: “I put it on Twitter where I’m usually the first to complain, but unfortunately I didn’t catch any of their names.

“We actually did end up in A&E, it turns out she has got quite a bad chest infection and her lungs were full of mucus.

“She is too young to be diagnosed, but they do think she has asthma.

“We hate going to hospital or the doctors unless it’s major, but we’ve been up there with her breathing six or seven times.

“We just want to say thank you to the staff for helping us out and going above and beyond what you’d ever expect.”

Phil Peirce, general manager at Cineworld Basildon, said: “The safety and security of our guests is our number one priority, so we are very glad this incident was resolved swiftly, safely and with great care from our team at Cineworld Basildon.

“We wish the young girl affected a speedy recovery and are looking forward to welcoming the family back soon.’’