A 4-year-old British girl accidentally hanged herself from a tree just days after becoming a twin sister – and her mother has already talked about her “hell storm” after the tragedy.
Freya Thorpe was wearing a bicycle helmet when she climbed a tree near her home in Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire in September 2019, the South West News Service reported.
She slipped and fell, but the helmet strap got stuck in the tree and she died, despite the efforts of the emergency teams.
“I am a broken individual, caught in a hellish storm of pain,” Freya’s mother, Elise, told The Sun.
“We live every day and every night in hell, torture, shock and sadness that cannot be understood,” she said.
The devastated mother told SWNS that she and her husband “were in the clouds after the long-awaited arrival and difficult pregnancy” of twins Kiera and Zack – and added that she would have taken her own life if she had not given birth 10 days earlier.
“A brother and sister Freya waited so long for nine long and difficult months to become a big sister,” she told the channel.
“In the early afternoon, Daddy had to pick up the special milk at Boots Pharmacy in Cowley for the twins, as they were allergic to cow’s milk,” said Elise.
Freya had been invited to a meeting to play in a house “10 seconds” walk in a dead end where parents “let their children play with confidence”, said the mother.
But on the fateful day, Freya ventured out without her mother knowing.
“I had the feeling that I wanted her at home. Shortly thereafter, I saw an ambulance at the end of the road – I panicked, instantly not knowing why I was panicking, ”said Elise to SWNS.
“I called my husband to say I was going to bring her home. He said, ‘No, I’m five minutes away, stay with the babies,’ ”she said.
“I saw his car go by and not come back from the small cul-de-sac. I knew something was wrong, ”she added.
When she saw her husband with a fireman, she grabbed the twins and ran to an isolated area where she saw first aid working desperately on Freya.
After waiting at John Radcliffe Hospital for two days, she and her husband were told that their daughter could not be saved.
“I never set foot in my house again. This is something that I also missed and still miss today – my home, ”said Elise.
“If I hadn’t given birth just 10 days earlier, we would have taken our lives in the hospital that night, without a doubt,” she said.
“We have received so much support in the past 18 months and we cannot say how much it has helped us, so I can never thank everyone enough for their support, kind words and donations – even those we have never met,” continued the mother.
“But we also experienced the scrutiny and abuse of people who asked, ‘Where were the parents? How could they let her go out alone? ‘”, She added.
“This caused disagreements between relatives and judgment, all because people did not know that Freya was not in our care when this happened.”