Robert Hall was taking his eight-month-old daughter, Mabli Cariad Hall, for a walk outside Withybush Hospital in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Inside the hospital, his mother was gravely ill. What was meant to be a brief moment of fresh air turned into a tragedy that would alter his life forever.
“We were saying goodbye to my mam,” Hall said. “Mabli held her hand in the hospital room, and then we decided to step outside for a stroll.”
Moments later, a car driven by 70-year-old Bridget Curtis lost control near the hospital and struck both Hall and his daughter. The vehicle, described as suddenly revving and going airborne, hit them without warning.
“All of a sudden I heard this horrible screeching,” Hall recalled to Wales Online. “The next thing I saw was this white car flying through the air. I was hit and thrown into a parking bay. When I came to, I was on my hands and knees, and the first thing I saw was the pram underneath the car. There was chaos, people running everywhere.”
Three nurses rushed to Hall’s side, lifting him up as he struggled to stand. But his only concern was Mabli.
“Nobody could find her,” he said. “Then I saw someone walking past me holding Mabli’s lifeless body. I’ll never be able to explain what that felt like.”
Mabli was airlifted to University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. With no space on the helicopter, Hall and Mabli’s mother endured a harrowing 100-mile journey in the back of a police car.
Hours passed before they were allowed to see her. “We kept asking if she was going to be OK, but no one could say,” Hall said. “Then around 3 a.m., a doctor came in and sat down. He said it was very unlikely she would survive. As soon as I heard that, I was sick everywhere. It was the most horrific thing a parent could hear. We didn’t want to believe it. It was brutal.”
Within days, Hall lost both his daughter and his mother.
“I couldn’t be there when my mam died, and I had nothing to do with her funeral,” he said. “That was all taken from me. The pain and trauma, it’s more than I can process or put into words.”
In September 2024, Bridget Curtis pleaded guilty to causing Mabli’s death by dangerous driving. She was sentenced to four years in prison.
“We’re grateful to the judge for giving us justice,” Hall said following the sentencing. “It’s a relief that the court process is over, and that Bridget Curtis is losing a part of her life. But nothing really changes for us. We are still in hell, surviving day by day. We’re all lost without Mabli, but we’re doing everything we can to support our other children through it.”
