Every day Cameron Labone leaves home, he relives the day his daughter died.
Five-month-old Chloe was struck by a van after her runaway pram rolled down the driveway and into traffic on Lake Rd in Auckland's Northcote.
"I hate that driveway," says Cameron. "I can't help but imagine what it was like for Chloe. There are only so many thought processes to see how she made it to the end avoiding all the drains and bumps - but somehow, she made it to the end. It isn't healthy thinking about it - it changes nothing and it won't bring her back."
Cameron, 32, is speaking publicly for the first time with a simple message to parents: Check the brakes.
"Something horrendous happened that day. We want answers but we should have taken an extra second to check the brake. It was a second-hand pram with a switch 'on and off' button which was simple to use but it was becoming more stubborn and made it harder for the brake to work.
"If we took two to three minutes to familiarise [ourselves with] how the brake works and maintained them with a squirt of CRC that might have made the difference of Chloe still being here. We service our cars so we should check our prams."
Chloe was Cameron's bundle of joy, born after he and partner D, met online five years ago and instantly "clicked".
"D's fun, classy, sporty and intelligent. She enjoys business and trading - we are both quite competitive."
His last memory before he walked out the door on the day Chloe died was her sleeping peacefully beside her mother.
"My life was perfect. I had a lot of motivation to be the best father I could be to provide a good life for Denise and Chloe ... There is such a void in our lives now."
Cameron says Chloe was a "happy accident" but the moment he saw her it was true love.
"Holding her was overwhelming and beautiful. Just hearing her breathe and grabbing my fingers was a great feeling."
The couple called Chloe Pang Zi, which means "fatty" in Chinese.
"She was our little sloth - a laidback baby who ate well and slept well. She had soft possum fur hair, she was so chubby she would snuggle into me. Chloe was very popular, everyone liked to hold her and adored her."
The morning before the tragedy D woke up to a text from Plunket reminding her about Chloe's appointment. Cameron says D was "groggy and exhausted" from a lack of sleep. Usually he would have gone with them, but he'd started a new job and wanted to impress his boss.
"I wish I hadn't gone to work that day. Poor D was so tired, she had just fed Chloe, which is her last memory. That closeness, minutes before the accident, has traumatised her."
He says as D headed out the door, she realised she'd left Chloe's dummy behind.
Chloe was safely tucked into her bassinet that was attached to the Stokke pram near the front door.
"It took 20 seconds," says Cameron.
By the front door of the couple's rented home, there is a one-degree drainage decline in the concrete.
"It's a slight slope and so minor you wouldn't notice but something moved the pram at the front door where we normally put her. The brake might have been on but it wasn't fully engaged and with Chloe getting heavier she could've kicked something."
'It was bad for both our families'
On October 5 at 8.52am two fathers' worlds collided.
Sudhir Saksena, who owns a carpet-cleaning franchise, was on his way home to grab some work tools when he saw a pram roll down a steep drive.
Sudhir estimates he was driving between 20km/h and 30km/h before the collision.
Sudhir sent a white orchid to Cameron and D after the accident. He's not ready to meet them face to face.
Cameron says Chloe was still zipped into her well-padded bassinet when she was thrown from the pram.
"There was a full line of traffic because the Harbour Bridge was being repaired. If Chloe had bumped into the side of a car with still traffic, it might not have been so bad. I think Chloe made it in between two cars, the driver wouldn't have had a chance to see anything. He wasn't going fast, there were no skid marks and he stopped right there."
Cameron doesn't blame Sudhir for Chloe's death.
"I want him to know it's not his fault. A thousand things could have stopped it from happening yet nothing did. He didn't see her. I'm sorry we have brought sadness into his life."
On the way to Starship, D reassured Cameron by phone - Chloe was breathing and had a steady heartbeat.
"I thought maybe it's not that bad, maybe she's had a little knock to the head, maybe it's not the end of the world and hung up."
Chloe had no obvious injuries but a first responder pulled Cameron aside and said, "Whatever happens next you have to own it."
"I thought 'what is he saying?'. But he was being kind, preparing me for the worse. That was an hour before we were told Chloe wouldn't make it. We didn't have a clue - we still thought there was a bit of hope.
"There was something wrong with her CT scan - the doctors came back to start preparing us. It hit home for D when they brought Chloe back and told us she wasn't with us any more, [that] her brain probably went at the moment of impact."
Self-recrimination is ongoing.
"We tried not to play the blame game," Cameron says.
"And we've had to overcome so many hurdles. Me and D have disagreed a lot, we have been at different places at different times. Bottling things up and not communicating clearly has been a struggle.
"Keeping us together has been a struggle - everyone says they want us to stay together and so do we. There was a bit of blame going back and forth but that's where counselling has helped. When it comes to grief it's important to ask for help, it's one of the smartest things we did."
Chloe never made her first birthday but the funeral was a celebration of her short life. The service was held at the Rotary Grove park where the family loved going for walks.
"She was at her happiest here. We didn't have a backyard - the park was beautiful and safe. Chloe loved it there."
Cameron says he mostly sees "happiness and joy" when he sees babies but D only sees loss.
"D was such a good mum. A happy healthy baby doesn't happen by accident. I won't be lying when I say it's hard when we see Chloe's friends growing up without her.
"Chloe will always be there but she will never get older. Hopefully, we will have another baby and Chloe will be the big sister. She will always be a part of us."
