- Casey watched in horror as her 17-month-old daughter Millie’s shopping trolley rolled away from the car and tipped over, causing her to hit her head on the bitumen
- After initially seeming alert, Millie began vomiting and became drowsy before doctors discovered a brain bleed and rushed her for emergency surgery
- Now, Millie’s mum is calling for supermarkets to introduce trolley brakes, trolley straps and other safety measures to help prevent similar accidents
Here Casey Gobbert, 30, from Logan, Qld, tells her story in her own words
Pulling out my phone, I caught my 17-month-old daughter Millie’s first steps on camera as she toddled across the lounge room.
‘You’re getting so big sweetheart,’ I smiled, grabbing her for a cuddle.
With Millie and her big brother, Lincoln, three, spending three days a week at day care while I worked, I’d worried I’d miss the big milestone.
Arriving home from swimming lessons later that day, I wrote a grocery list of things we needed from the store.
Bread, milk, monster trucks for Lincoln, thelist read.
Pulling up at the store, I parked in the same spot we always did, close to the pedestrian crossing to be safe.
Then, grabbing a trolley, I put the little ones into the special child seats and buckled up the belt.
Twenty minutes later, I was out of the store and back at the car.
Pushing the trolley up against the boot, I lifted the bags inside, then I had to unload the kids out of the trolley one by one.
‘Who wants to go in the car first?’ I asked.
‘Me!’ Lincoln chimed.
Pulling Lincoln from the trolley, I made sure it was still before going around to put him in his car seat.
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Halfway through buckling him up, though, I turned to check on Millie, who had been sitting patiently for her turn.
That’s when I noticed the trolley, with Millie still strapped in, slowly rolling away from the car.
Launching towards it, I reached for the handlebar to stop it, but a gust of wind caused it to pick up speed.
Helplessly, I chased after it as it headed towards a curb.
Rolling over it, the trolley tipped sideways, crashing onto the path – and poor Millie’s head smacked against the bitumen.
My poor baby! I thought, as my stomach lurched.
Millie was screaming when I reached her, and I pulled her from the trolley and rocked her until she calmed down.
A golf ball-sized lump had appeared on the left side of her head, but she was awake, alert and moving around.
It’s just going to be a bad concussion, I thought, tryingto steady my thoughts.
Buckling her safely beside Lincoln in the car, I rang my hubby, Gary, 32, from the front seat.
‘Millie’s been in an accident,’ I cried.
‘You need to get her to the hospital,’ Gary replied.
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On the way to Emergency, I stopped in at home briefly to drop Lincoln off with Gary and pick up a toy for Millie.
‘We’re going to be there a few hours at least,’ I reasoned.
Explaining the accident to the triage nurse, we were taken in for observations straight away.
After a few minutes, Millie began vomiting and feeling drowsy.
Ringing Gary to bring a change of clothes to the hospital, he arrived just in time to go into the CAT scan with Millie, while I waited with Lincoln.
Moments later, we were taken to a private room where a doctor broke some shocking news.
‘Millie has a bleed on the brain, she needs emergency surgery,’ he said.
But it needed to be done by the neurosurgeon team at the Children’s Hospital in Brisbane, so Millie and
I were transferred by ambulance.
A friend collected Lincoln, and Gary drove to join us.
With one last kiss, docs whisked our little girl into surgery to save her life, while we were taken to a room to wait.
‘It’s all my fault,’ I sobbed, terrified that the worst might happen.
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Gary held me tight until we heard from a doctor.
‘Everything is going to be okay,’ he reassured me.
In theatre for two hours, surgeons removed part of her skull, cleared the bleed and put the bone back.
‘The brain looks good, though we won’t know the extent of her injuries until she is off the ventilator,’ the specialist said.
Seeing our brave girl covered in tubes and surrounded by beeping machines in the ICU was heartbreaking.
Her head wrapped in bandages, it would be six weeks before the bone of her skull fused back together again.
The next morning, another CAT scan cleared Millie of further bleeds and docs took her off the ventilator that afternoon.
Coming to, Millie’s cries filled the room.
‘Mummy,’ she called, grabbing hold of my hands.
After two days in the ICU, Millie was moved to the general ward to continue recovering.
Desperate to be reunited with his little sister, Lincoln showered Millie with hugs and kisses when he visited her.
And three days later Millie was discharged.
Back home, our determined girl wasted no time getting back on her feet.
Minutes after walking through the door, she was pulling herself up on the furniture and taking steps around the living room.
Fearful of placing my kids in a trolley again, I began searching for a product that would keep it from rolling.
Incredibly, I found a mum based in Australia who had created the ‘trolley strap’ – a strap that tethers the trolley to the car boot using carabiner-style hooks.
Now I’m calling for supermarkets to fit brakes to their trolleys, offer trolley straps in-store, and fit trolley stoppers in car parks.
It’s not always possible to protect your bub from taking a tumble, but together we can make the shops safer.
