Woman Praised for Trying to Help Dying Girl
A woman has been praised after trying to save a two-year-old girl who died after a car driven by her mother smashed into a tree.
Henna Rai, a General Election candidate, put her coat on the ground and helped perform CPR on the child following the accident in the Birmingham district of Selly Oak.
The girl’s mother was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and child neglect following the crash, which happened at around 4pm.
Ms Rai is a trained first aider who stood as an Independent candidate at the recent General Election.
“I just wanted to save that baby girl. I was driving down Gibbins Road and the crash that had already taken place. When I saw the panicked faces I pulled over immediately to help. I saw a lady with a cut to her head.
“She was quite confused, saying: ‘We need to get the baby out of the car’. Another person in the car, I believe it was the grandmother, had put the little girl across her lap and was trying to resuscitate her, giving her compressions.
“We pushed the seat forward because it was a two-door car. I put my coat down on the floor and we laid the baby on top of it and gave her CPR and continued until the paramedics took over.
“They lifted her out of my arms almost immediately. Part of me knew what had happened to her but I was still hopeful she may come back.”
“The emergency services arrived really quickly and I was just hoping Esmee would make it. The first ambulance that arrived was so swift in its response. They swept her out from underneath me, I said: ‘Save her, just save her’. The mother was utterly devastated, she was just broken, she was screaming.
“My thoughts are with Esmee’s family.”
She said: “Esmee was just a year younger than my daughter and I wanted to put a teddy bear at the spot. I went back and sat there and reflected and just cried.
“I can’t even fathom what the family must be enduring. That girl went and took a piece of me with her, I didn’t know her but this has bound me to her and to her family.
“The least I can do is try to offer some comfort.”
She said: “Nobody cared about cast, creed, background, anything. It was about saving a little girl’s life, that’s all it was. What I saw shows people do come together. I have no words to express it, they are true heroes and they need to be acknowledged.”
Ms Rai regularly drives along Gibbins Road with her three-year-old daughter.
“I had driven up that road with my own daughter about five or ten minutes earlier. I dropped her home and when I drove past this I stopped and it just consumed me. I believe the girl’s family lived quite close by and they were just on their way home.”
