I thought she was dead!

Since the boys have arrived Roger and Sally (my in-laws) have been gracious enough to hire help for me during the weekdays for a while. A lot of times the helper will entertain Audrey while I'm feeding babies or doing stuff inside the house. This particular day the babysitter took Audrey outside to walk around, play on the swing, go on a stroller ride, etc. I was inside the house upstairs and I thought I heard yelling. I listened closer and I did hear yelling! It sounded like someone yelling for help. I immediately RAN down the stairs and checked out the front door first. No one was there. I ran to the back and as I was running out the door I saw a large bell (the bell was here when we moved in) toppled over and Audrey's feet sticking out and NO CRYING! I also saw the babysitter trying to lift the bell up. I thought she was dead! ... especially since I didn't hear crying. In the few seconds it took me to run down there I was just picturing me not being able to lift the bell off of Audrey and preparing myself to see her mangled or her head crushed in and having to call 911.

As I got to them I saw that Audrey was NOT underneath the bell. She was just sitting on the ground right behind it. What I saw earlier was Audrey's legs sticking out and the bell is so large that even though Audrey was sitting up, the bell hid her torso from my line of vision. She was fine. I then looked at the babysitter because I thought she must have yelled for some reason....surely not everyone could be okay. I thought maybe her foot was caught or something but it wasn't. She was fine, too. I picked up Audrey off of the ground and then the babysitter let go of the bell.

I asked what happened and she said that she was letting Audrey walk around and that she rung the bell for Audrey and then Audrey wanted to do it, too. Audrey pulled on the rope and the thing toppled over! It was on a stump and I guess unstable. She apologized over and over but it was a true accident. I would have never thought that thing would topple over especially with only little hands pulling on it.

The babysitter said that she saw it start to topple over so she pushed Audrey out of the way and tried to catch the bell so it wouldn't roll any further and land or roll on Audrey. She said she didn't move Audrey out of the way because she didn't think she had time! Then she yelled for me. I thought she did perfectly! The thing is.... she's only 14 years old! I thought that was VERY smart of her to push Audrey out of the way...I mean she only had a moment to react to the situation! And I thought it was very mature of her to yell for me instead of trying to cover up what happened since everyone was okay and that she continued to try to hold the bell until I heard her and came out!

I still can't get out of my head how very close Audrey was to getting seriously injured or dying! I have never felt so scared in my entire life. Scared doesn't even fully describe what I was feeling. I don't think there's a word for it!

To give you an idea of how big and heavy this bell is, there's a picture below. Can you imagine that falling on a child?! Needless to say.... we're moving it!

All I could think about after that was how grateful I was to still have Audrey here with us and was aware of how your whole life could change in just a moment. I had to hold her extra tight that day! I love her so much.