‘Your world as you know it turns upside down’ – heartbroken Kilkenny mother of girl (2) who died in cord tragedy

A Kilkenny mother has spoken about the devastating loss of her two-year-old daughter who tragically died as a result of an accident involving the cord of a blind at their home.

Heartbroken Lynda Redmond opened up about the circumstances in which her daughter Róisín lost her life almost six years ago in an emotional interview with RTÉ’s Ryan Tubridy this morning.

The Graiguenamanagh woman, who had two children, Róisín (2) and Cillian (7), with her partner Dave described how that fateful day in December 2014 started off “like every morning in our house” until their world was turned upside down forever.

“I was at work, the day was fine … and at 5pm I was in a stock room, I was counting Tommy Hilfiger jeans … I’ll never forget it … and a friend of mine came to me and said ‘Lynda, don’t panic, but there’s been an accident at home,” she told Ryan.

“The tears started to flow, the panic set in and the wondering began.”

Lynda rushed to University Hospital Waterford where she discovered the devastating news that her little girl had died after an accident involving a blind cord in her house.

“A doctor came to my level and said ‘Lynda’ and I said ‘You’re going to tell me she’s dead, aren’t you?’ and he looked at me and he said ‘Lynda, I am’,” she said.

“So that was it… that’s your world as you know it turned upside down. Every emotion, everything you’ve known has just gone.

“But, yeah… I just knew he was going to say that. I just knew. I don’t know… call it a gut, but I just knew.”

Lynda said Róisín had been sitting room playing at around dinner time in the moments leading up to the tragedy.

“My son had a show that night in his primary school so he was getting ready for that and I was getting ready to come home and take him to that, so it was four o’clock and mam was home with them,” she recalled.

“Róisín got up to the window and got caught in the cord of the blind in the sitting room … yeah, she died.”

Lynda said she returned to work six weeks after her daughter’s death, explaining that she was “torn” between going to work and getting on with it, and staying at home to look after her son.

She said: “I would go every day [to work] and I would smile, but while I stood in work I would be so afraid of the door opening and a mom coming in with a little girl that was blonde, or a girl coming in with a Frozen t-shirt, or if someone called out the name Róisín. I would be petrified all day long of those scenarios happening.”

Lynda has had two more children – Anna (4) and baby Brody, who was born last year – since Róisín’s passing.

Anna was born on Róisin’s anniversary two years later, and Lynda says that she sees much of Róisín in her little sister.

“I really do feel some days there’s a small bit of Róisín in Anna,” she said.

“There’s a spirit within Anna of Róisín. Anna even speaks about Róisín even though she never met her. She’s made up her own little idea that she lives in the sunshine.”