Mike Sleights was playing Solitaire on his computer when his 9-year-old granddaughter, Tatania DeGunia, came in to use the computer. Tatania looked out the window because she thinks “when the snow is falling it’s kind of graceful.”

But instead she was met with a disconcerting sight, which she pointed out to her grandfather.

Sleights initially didn’t see anything noteworthy, but when Tatania insisted he look again, he realized his elderly neighbor was lying in the snow.

Sleights left his Niantic home, went across the street and found that the neighbor had been lying there for about 15 minutes, unable to get up.

“Tatania was very frightened for the neighbor, and she kept saying, ‘I hope she doesn’t’ get hypothermia,’” recalled her grandmother, Judy Sleights.

Vicki DeGunia, Tatania’s mother, called 911, and first responders helped the neighbor – who did not sustain any serious injuries – back into her house.

The neighbor had come outside through her garage, DeGunia said, and “the wind had completely covered up any sign of her coming out of the garage.”

On March 1, the Girl Scouts of Connecticut presented Tatania with a “thanks from the heart” patch to recognize her quick thinking and action to help her neighbor during the Jan. 4 storm.

“Your actions are an outstanding example of the Girl Scouts slogan ‘Do a good turn daily,’” senior membership specialist Loretta Lincoln wrote to Tatania. “Always remember that the good work you do today will have a positive and lasting impact to make the world a better place.”

The neighbor’s son – who did not wish to be named, to protect his mother’s privacy – wrote a letter to Tatania and her family in gratitude for their actions.

The son explained that on the afternoon of Jan. 4, his mother underestimated the strength of the storm and walked down the driveway to grab the mail. She slipped and fell in a snowdrift near the mailbox.

“If it had not been for Tatania’s sharp eye and quick thinking, the outcome might have been very different indeed,” the son wrote. “My mother, our whole family and I are extremely grateful to Tatania and the Sleights family.”

Erica Moser is a staff writer for The Day.