A mother
'in a hurry' ran over and killed her two-year-old daughter on the driveway of
the family home in a tragic school-run accident, a coroner has been told.
Amanda Qi reversed up the steep driveway in her car, not realising she
had only her young son in the car and that her other child Karen was still
outside.
She told Reading Coroner's Court that she had put her son William
into her Toyota Prius but was distracted from securing her daughter Karen
because she was throwing away a banana skin which was left in the car.
She got into the driver's seat and began moving before she felt a 'bump' and
realised Karen was not in the car.
Mrs Qi rushed outside and found her daughter, who she called Qi-Qi, was
neither conscious nor breathing.
'I made sure William had his seatbelt on and then I reversed and felt a
strange bump,' she told the inquest.
'I realised Qi-Qi was not in the car. I realised she was not there.
'Sometimes she climbed in herself - she sits in the rear passenger seat
on the left.
'I turned the engine off and went to the back of the car and she was
lying on the floor next to the rear passenger side wheel. She was not breathing
or conscious, I took out my phone to call 999 and other people came to help at
that point.
'My neighbour said she was a trainee nurse, my other neighbour said she
was a first aider and they did CPR on Qi-Qi.'
Mrs Qi, who attended the inquest with Karen's father, Frank Liu,
described how she was in a rush to get the children to school on the morning of
November 17 last year.
'We were often running late because of traffic and we were running late
as usual,' she said.
'The last time I recall seeing her was at the front door of the house. I
did not reverse back very far. I used the accelerater a little as there is a
slope towards the house and I have to use the accelorator to move the car.
'The bump I felt was very slight, it did feel I had run something over.
'The reason I walked around the car was the day before William had left
a banana skin in the car so I took the skin to the bin then I came back to the
driver's side.
'I got into the car, opened the door and let William climb in. The front
passenger door is where he normally sits - he has a child seat.
'He climbed in the seat then I got the banana skin. It was in the cup
holder. I think she was next to the car because normally I open the door for
William then open the door for Karen and she would climb in because she liked
to climb in herself most of the time
'I rushed, I thought she was already in. I thought I had already
fastened her into the seat.'
She added she had not waited for the Toyota's reversing camera to come
on because she was in a hurry and was not yet close to the end of the drive
when she began moving.
Jonny Nicholson, a paramedic, said that when he arrived to the family
home in Wraysbury, Berkshire, at around 8.20 am there were no electrical
signals from the child's heart.
She was taken to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough where she was pronounced
dead.
A post-mortem examination revealed a haemorrhage to the right side of
Karen's brain and a fracture to the right side of her skull.
It said: 'These fractures and the injury to the brain would have been
fatal and incompatible with life.'
Police constable David Hannan, a trained forensic collisions
investigator, compliled a report on the incident which said the rear-facing
camera of the car combined with its exterior mirrors should have provided a
good view.
'It is believed Karen was pushed to the floor and the rear wheel made
contact with her head,' he told the inquest in Reading, Berkshire.
'The Toyota is equipped with a reversing camera to provide the driver
with a view of what is behind. An examination of the vehicle found no defect.
The Toyota would have been in most likely electric mode.
