diff --git a/heat/engine/hot/functions.py b/heat/engine/hot/functions.py
index 5356ee51da..241fd9c49d 100644
--- a/heat/engine/hot/functions.py
+++ b/heat/engine/hot/functions.py
@@ -80,6 +80,14 @@ class GetParam(function.Function):
                 raise TypeError(_('Path components in "%s" '
                                   'must be strings') % self.fn_name)
 
+            if isinstance(collection, collections.Sequence
+                          ) and isinstance(key, six.string_types):
+                try:
+                    key = int(key)
+                except ValueError:
+                    raise TypeError(_("Path components in '%s' "
+                                      "must be a integer "
+                                      "parsable strings.") % self.fn_name)
             return collection[key]
 
         try:
diff --git a/heat/tests/test_hot.py b/heat/tests/test_hot.py
index d12378ce67..06b3bc370e 100644
--- a/heat/tests/test_hot.py
+++ b/heat/tests/test_hot.py
@@ -1661,6 +1661,10 @@ class StackParametersTest(common.HeatTestCase):
          dict(params={'list': 'foo,bar'},
               snippet={'properties': {'prop1': {'get_param': ['list', 1]}}},
               expected={'properties': {'prop1': 'bar'}})),
+        ('get_list_attr_string_index',
+         dict(params={'list': 'foo,bar'},
+              snippet={'properties': {'prop1': {'get_param': ['list', '1']}}},
+              expected={'properties': {'prop1': 'bar'}})),
         ('get_flat_dict_attr',
          dict(params={'flat_dict':
                       {'key1': 'val1', 'key2': 'val2', 'key3': 'val3'}},