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| Hillsborough inquests: father who lost two daughters recalls 'awful choice' | Hillsborough inquests: father who lost two daughters recalls 'awful choice' |
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| A father whose two teenage daughters were killed in the crush at Hillsborough in 1989 has described the “awful choice” he faced when going in an ambulance with one of them while having to leave the other behind, lying limp on the pitch. | A father whose two teenage daughters were killed in the crush at Hillsborough in 1989 has described the “awful choice” he faced when going in an ambulance with one of them while having to leave the other behind, lying limp on the pitch. |
| Trevor Hicks, who went to the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest with his whole family – his then-wife, Jenni, and daughters Sarah, 19, and Vicki, 15 – told the new inquests into the disaster that when he went with Vicki, he assumed another ambulance would come along shortly for Sarah. He and a South Yorkshire police officer, Peter McGuinness, had carried Vicki into the ambulance, after they and others had been attempting to resuscitate both girls on the pitch. | Trevor Hicks, who went to the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest with his whole family – his then-wife, Jenni, and daughters Sarah, 19, and Vicki, 15 – told the new inquests into the disaster that when he went with Vicki, he assumed another ambulance would come along shortly for Sarah. He and a South Yorkshire police officer, Peter McGuinness, had carried Vicki into the ambulance, after they and others had been attempting to resuscitate both girls on the pitch. |
| Hicks said they initially lifted Vicki into the ambulance the wrong way round, feet first. There was another injured person inside already, and when they left Vicki to carry Sarah in, an injured man was put on the ambulance floor, meaning it was full. Hicks said he decided to stay with Vicki, believing that a fleet of ambulances would arrive and that the next one would take Sarah to hospital. The inquests have heard this did not happen, and that only three ambulances, and one from St John Ambulance, went on the pitch. | Hicks said they initially lifted Vicki into the ambulance the wrong way round, feet first. There was another injured person inside already, and when they left Vicki to carry Sarah in, an injured man was put on the ambulance floor, meaning it was full. Hicks said he decided to stay with Vicki, believing that a fleet of ambulances would arrive and that the next one would take Sarah to hospital. The inquests have heard this did not happen, and that only three ambulances, and one from St John Ambulance, went on the pitch. |
| “I felt dreadful,” Hicks told the court of having to leave Sarah. “I had no choice, I appreciate that. But it doesn’t stop you feeling dreadful.” | “I felt dreadful,” Hicks told the court of having to leave Sarah. “I had no choice, I appreciate that. But it doesn’t stop you feeling dreadful.” |
| Questioned by Christina Lambert QC, for the coroner Sir John Goldring, Hicks described the ambulance rocking around while he, McGuinness and the ambulance officer, Tony Edwards, tried to revive Vicki. As he tried to stay on his feet, Hicks said it was difficult not to stand on the man who was on the floor. | Questioned by Christina Lambert QC, for the coroner Sir John Goldring, Hicks described the ambulance rocking around while he, McGuinness and the ambulance officer, Tony Edwards, tried to revive Vicki. As he tried to stay on his feet, Hicks said it was difficult not to stand on the man who was on the floor. |
| “Part of my PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] problems, I think, were caused by that,” he said. | “Part of my PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] problems, I think, were caused by that,” he said. |
| Hicks had earlier described frantic efforts to revive Sarah and Vicki, whose “limp form” he had seen being carried over the fence from “pen” three of Hillsborough’s Leppings Lane terrace, where the girls had been trapped. Hicks said that from his position higher up on the terrace, next to the police control box, he had called to a police officer to help but said the officer’s attitude “wasn’t going anywhere”. | |
| Hicks went on to the pitch, where Sarah and Vicki had been laid next to each other, and, with others including a doctor who was a spectator at the match, tried to revive both daughters. As a mechanical engineer, he said, he had been given basic first aid training, although he had only ever practised on a dummy before having to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to his daughters. | |
| Hicks told the court that Vicki’s airways were blocked with vomit, and in his efforts to clear it, he had to suck vomit from her throat. “I ended up getting a mouthful of vomit myself. It gave me a problem [later]; I couldn’t drink anything but ginger beer for about six months afterwards, not even alcohol. I’m told it was a psychological trigger, because it was my last contact with the girls really. I literally sucked the vomit out and spat it on the ground.” | Hicks told the court that Vicki’s airways were blocked with vomit, and in his efforts to clear it, he had to suck vomit from her throat. “I ended up getting a mouthful of vomit myself. It gave me a problem [later]; I couldn’t drink anything but ginger beer for about six months afterwards, not even alcohol. I’m told it was a psychological trigger, because it was my last contact with the girls really. I literally sucked the vomit out and spat it on the ground.” |
| When the ambulance arrived at Sheffield’s Northern General hospital, Vicki was taken into a cubicle, he said, where medical staff worked to save her, and he was asked to wait outside. After 10-15 minutes, McGuinness came out again and told Hicks that his daughter was dead. He said he immediately turned his attention to Sarah, whom he thought would be at the hospital by then. The inquests have not yet heard evidence about what happened to her, or Hicks’s efforts to find her. | |
| Anthony Garratty, a Sheffield Wednesday steward at Hillsborough who helped with Vicki Hicks and other casualties, gave evidence after Trevor Hicks. Garratty told the inquests that police who interviewed him afterwards omitted large parts of his account from the statement they wrote up. That included, he said, his evidence that Vicki was “moaning and groaning” when he attended to her on the pitch, and was “100% definitely alive” at that point. | |
| Garratty broke down when describing his efforts, “like an ant”, running around using advertising hoardings as makeshift stretchers to carry people. The casualties included two more of the 96 people who died – Colin Ashcroft, 19, and Peter Harrison, 15. At the end of his evidence, Garratty was thanked by Goldring, Lambert and the barristers representing the families. | |
| Crying, he said to the bereaved family members, about 100 of whom were in court: “I am truly sorry. I just send my condolences to all the people, all the families. I grieve every day for everyone here. And I’ve come here, even though it’s hurt me so much; I’ve had to get it off my head, because I just … it’s groundhog day every day.” | |
| The inquests continue. | The inquests continue. |