A mum in fatal crash returned to her car to rescue her daughter despite breaking both her feet.
Erica Nocella pulled her daughter Dahlia, four, from the wreckage with the little girl suffering a broken arm and a cut to her pancreas.
The heroic mum managed to battle through her own pain of two broken feet and a broken sternum during the horror crash on their way to a train station in Surrey on January 8.
Speaking about the crash, Erica told SurreyLive: "Everything is normal and then you see this thing in front of you. I was aware of everything. Instinctively I tried to brake which explains the two broken feet. I just felt the airbag hit my face quite hard and then obviously I thought about Dahlia.
“I called her but she wasn’t answering so instinctively I got out of the car with my two broken feet. I don't know what it was, maybe adrenaline, but I went to the back and she was scared. She wasn’t understanding what was going on.
“She said to me ‘what’s going on?’ I just got her out of the car and walked away, I couldn’t feel a thing. It’s quite normal for a mum to make sure her children are safe.
"I saw when they tried to help the people in the other car and obviously I was hoping that they were fine, but then I heard an ambulance staff saying he wasn’t breathing.”
Both Erica, her partner Thaniel and her daughter were taken to St George’s Hospital, in Tooting, for treatment and the mum has been at her daughter's bedside at King's Paediatric Liver Centre.
Police confirmed one man sadly died in the crash.
Dahlia is still unable to eat properly and has to be fed through a tube that goes inside her nose to her stomach. Thaniel suffered a broken hand and broken hips in the incident but is recovering well.
They have not returned home since the crash and although Dahlia is expected to make a full recovery Erica said the past few weeks had been an “emotional rollercoaster.” She is still not sure when she and her daughter can return home.
“One day they say they can do this, the other it’s ‘she’s getting worse.’ It’s been very up and down. It’s been very heavy and very tough. We know, thank God, that she will recover. It's just that it will take a bit of time.
“She's scared of doctors, she’s developed a phobia of needles in here and has gone through a lot. Every time she hears a doctor or nurse she’s scared. Dahlia isn’t very open at the moment to speak with people, for three weeks she wasn’t even talking.”
Erica has been unable to operate her cleaning business due to her injuries, which force her to use crutches or a wheelchair and being by Dahlia’s side. Friends have since set up a GoFundMe page to help get them “back on their feet” following the crash which has received £2,851 in donations so far.
It reads: "The shock from the accident and the injuries do not make the journey easy for Erika [sic]. Erica is a single mum; she has been living in England for many years and working hard to provide for Dahlia and herself. She recently started a cleaning business, which is no longer possible to continue - she is now left with no income at all and unable to work to support her little family."
