The parents of critically-ill Arbroath youngster Cally Simpson say they felt their little girl squeeze their hands as they cling to hope she will recover.
Steven Simpson, 26, and Kate Miller, 30, said they are living every parent’s nightmare as Cally remains in intensive care after being pulled unconscious from a swimming pool.
However, Cally’s parents updated followers on their Facebook page to say they think they felt her squeeze their hands.
Doctors said it could be a muscle reflex but were keeping an eye on developments overnight as she continues with her battle back to health.
Cally had been on holiday with her dad on the family’s annual summer getaway when the accident happened and he said he blames himself for what happened.
“She died at the side of the pool but came back to us,” said Steven from Barcelona’s Sant Joan de Deu children’s hospital. “We’re living every parent’s nightmare. All we can do now is pray Cally pulls through.”
An investigation has been launched at the Villamarina Hotel in Salou where Steven and 11 family members were staying after a holidaymaker rescued lifeless Cally from the pool floor on June 23.
Dad Steven was at the toilet when it happened, having left Cally with eight relatives at the pool area.
“I’d just left the toilet when I heard blood-curling screams, the type of which I’ve never, ever heard before or will ever be able to forget,” he said.
“I came round from the reception area and could see my mum’s face along with the screams. That’s when I knew something awful had happened.
“I leapfrogged sunbeds and tables and could see that it was Cally lying beside the pool. She was blue.
“I collapsed on my knees. I was in bits and blamed myself straight away. I lay on the ground next to Cally and screamed at her ‘Come on, baby, come back to us, don’t leave your daddy’.”
An ambulance arrived and Cally received CPR and was breathing again before being transferred by air ambulance to the specialist unit of the Barcelona children’s hospital.
Steven said he was told on four separate occasions in the next 24 hours that his daughter was unlikely to survive.
The week-long Spanish holiday would have been the longest time she had spent away from mum Kate, who she lives with in Kirkton, Arbroath.
Kate and Steven split up when their daughter was three weeks old.
Kate said: “I knew how much Steven wanted to spend time with her and that I couldn’t take her on holiday myself, so had to let her go. She told me how much she was going to miss me and I told her the same and how much I loved her.”
Cally remains in a coma but is almost breathing entirely of her own accord. However, the prognosis is likely that the youngster will have suffered some degree of brain damage.