An 80-year-old woman from the French Alpine town of Annecy had to endure three days without food or water after getting her head stuck under a radiator.

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The pensioner, named only as Renée, ended up with her head wedged under the radiator after falling head first in her apartment in the Haute Savoie town in south-east France on the afternoon of Friday January 8.

After getting stuck she was too frail to push herself free and unfortunately her personal alarm device, with which she could have summoned help, was distressingly out of reach on the kitchen table.

After unsuccessfully trying to raise the alarm by shouting, Renée was forced to give up and sit and wait until help arrived.

Fortunately on Monday one of her neighbours heard her anguished cries and immediately called fire fighters who were able to set her free.

Although tired and dehydrated, Renée’s three-day ordeal, left her with only minor bruises and a black eye.

Thankfully she appears to have recovered well enough from her nightmare to give an interview to French radio RTL.

"The hardest thing was the thirst,” she told RTL. “You can go without food but not water.”