HAVERHILL — Barbara Pierce has long thought of her granddaughter Samantha Hebb as her little angel.

When they were swimming together one day, Pierce found out she was right. Ten-year-old Samantha was indeed an angel — a guardian angel.

While visiting her grandmother at her house in Lebanon, Maine, this summer, Samantha went swimming at a local pond nearby. Pierce lost her grip on an inflatable noodle float, and her head slipped under the water again and again.

The fourth time she went under she was submerged in water 10 feet deep — and running out of energy.

Just when things were looking dire, she felt a hand grab her wrist and pull her to safety. Samantha had saved her grandmother’s life.

“I took her wrist and sidestroked to shore,” Samantha said. “I started panicking at first. I was afraid I was going to lose one of my best friends.”

The feelings of panic didn’t last long, however, as Samantha looked more like a seasoned lifeguard than a girl who just learned how to swim last year.

In recognition of her bravery, members of the Lebanon Rescue Department presented Samantha, who lives in Haverhill, with a Heroism Award at a ceremony in her honor last week. With family and friends in attendance, along with Maine state representatives and the entire Lebanon rescue and fire departments, Samantha received an engraved granite plaque.

“I was very excited about the ceremony,” Samantha said. “This was a special time for me.”

While Samantha was excited, her grandmother, 65, was ecstatic.

“This whole thing is so overwhelming that I can’t believe it all happened,” Pierce said. “I always called her my little angel, but now she really is. We had quite a celebration for her, and she deserves it. She saved my life.”

She’s been spending several days a week this summer at her grandmother’s home in Lebanon — where she learned how to swim last year. It is a good thing she did, said her mother, Georgia Bailey, 42, of Haverhill.

When the pressure was on, Samantha acted beyond her years and without concern for her own safety.

“I am proud and impressed by the way she handled the whole situation,” her mother said. “She is strong enough to keep her cool in a situation like that and come through. It was unbelievable.”

Samantha is a member of Girls Incorporated, Haverhill’s version of the Girls Club. She will enter fifth grade at Bradford Elementary School in the fall.