Father recounts his attempts to save daughters at Hillsborough
THE father of two sisters crushed to death at the Hillsborough disaster has given harrowing evidence to the inquest into the tragedy.
Sarah Hicks, 19, and her sister Victoria, 15, had been standing in the central pens behind the goal on the Leppings Lane terrace on the FA Cup semi-final match day in Sheffield after being separated from their father, Trevor.
Wear ing a red “96” commemorative badge on his suit, Mr Hicks told the Hillsborough inquest sitting in Warrington he called out their names as he gave them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions.
He spoke of the heartbreaking moment he had “no choice” but to leave his elder daughter on the pitch as he car r ied V ick i i nt o an ambulance.
Liverpool Univer sit y student Sarah and her “football mad” sister Vicki had travelled to the ground on April 15, 1989, with their father and mother Jenni.
Mr Hicks yesterday relived the moment he saw the “limp form” of his youngest daughter being passed over a fence on to the pitch after the surge.
He said as he made his way down from his position in the south-west terrace underneath the police box he found both of his daughters lying side by side.
“I was going to do everything possible and everyone else seemed to be doing that,” he said.
“I have always been taught that one of the last things that goes is the hearing so I was calling their names as well in the hope that you know they’d know we were there.”
The inquest heard Mr Hicks was orchestrating a “little squad” in supervising and encouraging others in the care of his girls.
“I was doing what I thought was best. I spent most of my time on Victoria but there was a group of us, it was a case of swapping around between the two girls.”
He added that he had to clear Vicki’s airways by sucking the vomit from her throat and had seen her chest rising as he did so.
The inquest was told that once an ambulance arrived on the pitch Mr Hicks carried Vicki “literally in our arms”, assisted by another, before turning to get Sarah.
Mr Hicks said of his daughters, “as far as I was concerned they hadn’t gone”.
“My concern was to get Sarah into the ambulance once Vicki was in it. I was then faced with the awful choice of leaving Sarah, who I was assured would be placed in the next ambulance which was apparently coming. “It was chaos.” The inquiry continues.