Samantha Walsh is pictured with her tragic son Carter Walsh (Image: Samantha Walsh / SWNS)

Devastated mum learnt tragic tot was dying after being crushed by fireplace on phone

The 38-year-old from Manchester was terrified couldn't help thinking of the worst-case scenario so rushed home to find paramedics desperately trying to save little Carter.

20 Sep 2024, 19:10 by Bradley Jolly · Daily Record

A devastated mum learnt her tot was dying after being crushed by a fireplace on the phone after popping out twenty minutes earlier.

Samantha Walsh first heard of the horror incident on September 18 involving her two-year-old son Carter when her teenage niece rang her and said he had "banged his head" but, in fact, a marble fireplace collapsed - after its bottom section “snapped” and crushed the tot.

The 38-year-old from Manchester was terrified couldn't help thinking of the worst-case scenario so rushed home to find paramedics desperately trying to save little Carter on Wednesday afternoon but tragically he died in hospital.

Speaking out for the first time since the horrific loss mum-of-four Samantha told the Mirror: "He was my best friend. He was well-loved, not just by his family but by anybody that met him. He broke the hearts of everybody he met... He was the apple of our eyes."

Carter had enjoyed the "best day ever" with family on Wednesday - and got to meet his grandmother's horse - and played with his cousin and aunt Natalie Prescott, 35, at his home when Samantha popped out.

But less than half an hour later, disaster struck and an ambulance was called to the address.

Aunt, Natalie said: "The fireplace, it just collapsed in the middle. It was giving and it’s just collapsed and it’s just come forward. It was a marble fireplace." The property's landlord, who was at the address fixing a boiler at the time, phoned 999 and paramedics dashed to the scene.

Carter had been out at a restaurant with relatives on the tragic day he lost his life (Image: Samantha Walsh / SWNS)

This is the heartbreaking final photograph of the two-year-old boy taken when he met his gran's horse (Image: Samantha Walsh / SWNS)

Natalie's daughter then called Samantha, who began to panic.

Samantha continued: "She was very calm at first and she just said ‘You need to come home, Carter has banged his head.’ I don’t know if she was doing that to keep me calm.

“I was waiting for a taxi, and I was on my way home, and then I just kept ringing her. And every time I rang her, I could tell it was serious. She started to panic because she knew I was on my way back.

“I rang my mum. She came and picked me up. And when I got there, they were still working on him – the ambulance and the police. They let me see him, and then they said, ‘Right, we need to get him to hospital'.

"They said, 'We’re going to Wigan [hospital].' I knew then, there was nothing… because they cancelled the air ambulance. My mum is a nurse at the hospital. So she knew as well. So she just said, ‘Prepare yourself when you get to the hospital.’”

Devastated Samantha said when she saw Carter on the ward, he had looked ‘peaceful’ and there were no signs that he had suffered a life-threatening injury. She said: “It was just one head injury.

"But he just looked so peaceful… There was no bruising or anything to his face. The cut was covered over. There were no visible injuries. He’s had loads of checks at the hospital. They’ve said he had been healthy [prior to the accident]. Everything was fine.”

Samantha said that when Carter was born, he had briefly been looked after by foster carers before she took full charge of him. She was struggling to come to terms with her life now the little lad had passed away.

Devastated mum learnt tragic tot was dying after being crushed by fireplace on phone

The 38-year-old from Manchester was terrified couldn't help thinking of the worst-case scenario so rushed home to find paramedics desperately trying to save little Carter.

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