Sisters’ miracle crash survival
Published: January 28, 2006
LITTLE miracle Kira Simmonds was back home with big sister Catherine yesterday recovering from the accident that almost claimed both their lives.
Five-year-old Kira was struck by a car and dragged 30m after dashing across the road outside her home.
Catherine, 14, had run after her, seeing the oncoming car and the little girl ducking for cover.
But she was also hit, thrown over the bonnet of the car that was travelling well within the road’s 60km/h limit.
Their father, Colin, spoke yesterday of his anguish as he watched the nightmare unfold as he stood on his Launceston home’s verandah just a few metres away.
“I thought I’d lost both of them. One second they were standing on the edge of the road waiting to cross, the next Kira had dashed out and Catherine went after her,” he said.
Terrified of what he would find, Mr Simmonds reached under the car and held his daughter’s head still as other people lifted the car off.
That’s when he heard the words: “Daddy, my body hurts.”
“I realised then that she wasn’t just alive but she knew who I was,” he said.
Kira was taken to hospital. She’d lost a lot of blood from where skin had been peeled off her body and face. Bones in her right elbow and upper left leg were smashed.
Amazingly, there were no internal or head injuries.
“I was told there was about a 1 in 200 chance of someone surviving an accident like that. Someone was looking out for her that day,” Mr Simmonds said.
Kira spent more than a fortnight in hospital and came home on Wednesday night.
Ahead of her are months of recovery and surgery to repair her damaged skin, which was burnt by friction and scraped from about 30 per cent of her body, but she is expected to make a full recovery.
Catherine escaped with a broken arm.
“You can talk about luck. We’re bloody lucky,” Mr Simmonds said.
The family has lived on the busy Vermont Rd for 18 years. All four of the children have grown up there and Mr Simmonds and his wife, Lee, have taught them good road safety.
“I hope people realise how easily this can happen. You can talk forever afterwards about what-ifs but it doesn’t change what happened,” Mr Simmonds said.
He said the paramedics, police, doctors, nurses and hospital staff had performed excellent work.
“I can’t speak highly enough of everyone involved and what a great job they did,” he said.
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