Girl, 3, rushed to hospital as mother tells gardaí, ‘I’ve smothered my child’
GARDAÍ performed life-saving CPR on a three-year-old girl after receiving a call from a mother who said: ‘I have smothered my child.’
The girl was said to be showing good vital signs as doctors worked to keep her alive at Crumlin Children’s Hospital last night.
The woman, in her 40s, was arrested on suspicion of assault causing harm and detained at a south Dublin Garda station under Section 4 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
Shortly after 4pm yesterday, a woman called gardaí and confessed. Officers alerted emergency services but arrived at the scene in Shankill in south Dublin before the ambulance. They performed CPR on the child before she was taken to Crumlin.
Down the quiet cul-de-sac, the curtains were drawn last night and the lights left on in the family home.
A lone member of An Garda Síochána maintained a presence outside the property, as the scene remained cordoned off. One neighbour spoke of their horror, saying: ‘You hear people say it on the news – “Nothing ever happens here” – and now we know what it’s like.
‘I was just watching TV and heard all the commotion, with Garda cars, the Armed Support Unit, the fire brigade and paramedics. They are nice, quiet people. No one seems to know too much about them. I saw the mum walking off voluntarily into an unmarked Garda car quite early, and the dad outside holding his son in his arms. Then ages later we saw a little body come out on a stretcher to the ambulance. I could only gasp. No one knows what really happened.’