Dead toddlers' families share their grief

Deanna Robertson

Aisling Symes' family say they will visit the parents of a toddler crushed by a brick wall just 3km from where their daughter died in another freak accident.

Deanna Jane Robertson, 17 months, was picking the bark off a tree outside the Massey, West Auckland home of her aunt and uncle when a wall at the front of the property collapsed on her on Saturday morning.

Waitakere City Council is investigating whether the mortar holding the bricks - believed to be more than 30 years old - may have dried out because of recent hot weather.

Civil engineers have inspected the wall and are preparing a report for the coroner.

Councillor Linda Cooper said the tragedy brought back memories of local toddler Aisling Symes, whose body was found in a drain near her deceased grandparents' home in Henderson, about 3km away, in September last year.

Her father, Alan Symes, said he and his wife, Angela, could relate to how Deanna's parents, Edwin and Sarah, who is pregnant with her second child, were feeling.

"I think it's the best thing, if we can offer whatever support we can because we know how these people are feeling, all the emotions they are going through, whether it's guilt, grief, anguish, pain, it's not something you get over overnight.

"We will definitely catch up with them," he said.

"A lively little girl, just going out there and looking at trees, it's exactly what Aisling used to do, the wonderment of nature.

"It's the simple things that those little children just love, going out to a park or something and just looking at birds, flowers, looking at trees, they absolutely love it, they get so much pleasure out of it."

The Symes visited the local family of Luca Gibson, who died after falling partway out of a bunk bed and suffocating while on a family holiday in January.

Up to 70 people were gathered at Deanna's parents' Waitakere home yesterday to pay their respects.

Among the mourners was former All Black Buck Shelford, who has known Deanna's grandfather Patrick Robertson since their days in the Navy together, and Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey.

The toddler's grandmother Martina Cotter said her daughter and son-in-law Louise and Shane Holloway had been babysitting Deanna, as she did most Saturdays, when the accident happened.

Mrs Holloway, who does not have children of her own, doted on Deanna, often taking her shopping and knitting for her.

Deanna had been waiting on her porch with her handbag, full of snacks and "Nanny's money", when her aunt came to pick her up.

When Ms Holloway arrived she ran to the car and yelled "toot toot" as the vehicle reversed.

Mrs Cotter said her daughter blamed herself saying, "It happened on my watch," but Deanna's father had told her no one was to blame.

The grandmother said she had a sleepless night on Saturday, waking up every hour yelling, "Deanna's dead, Deanna's dead."

She added: "She was a really nice little person. You didn't have a grizzly girl on your hands.

"If you had to fault her, she didn't like going to bed on time, but she never grizzled about it."

She said the toddler loved music and her mother took her to dance classes.

The rubble of the wall had not been removed from the front of the house yesterday.

Flowers, soft toys and candles laid by members of the public surrounded a tree in front of the wall.