'It doesn't feel real' - Ireland AM presenter in tears with mother of girl killed by scrambler

Monday marked one month since 16-year-old Grace Lynch was tragically killed after she was hit by a scrambler as she was crossing the road in Finglas, county Dublin.

Her heartbroken parents Siobhán and Martin, appeared on Ireland AM this week to speak about their grief on losing their beloved daughter and their ongoing campaign, Grace's Law, to tighten restrictions and regulations around scramblers.

READ NEXT: Man in his 50s dead following horror collision involving motorcycle and lorry

"Grace was the third girl, she was the baby," said Siobhán, "Grace was just so funny. She would do little quirky things, I found out recently she was bringing her friends back to the house to wash and blow-dry their hair, and cut their hair."

"She was 16, her life was just starting," said presenter Muireann O'Connell as she asks Martin does Grace's death feel real for him.

"It doesn't feel real, but each day it's sinking in further that she's not coming home," Martin answers, "and we go to the graveyard, we visit, we put down flowers, and that's it from now on."

"In the immediate aftermath of what happened to Grace we saw ye immediately, it was visceral," said Muireann, "Siobhán I remember it so well, you were out, you started campaigning straight away about these scrambler bikes. Was it something that you and your community had talked about already?"

"I worked as Health Care Assistant and I used to walk around as most of my clients would have been based in Finglas and up where Harry (Grace's boyfriend) lives," replied Siobhán.

"You would be on the footpaths walking and they'd be just flying passed you and you'd see kids dodging out of the way, elderly people almost stumbling and falling and frightened to go out of their house, and I would always so 'they are going to kill themselves or somebody else' I've been saying it for years, and so has a lot of the community.

Presenter Tommy Bowe asked them both if they talk about what happened on Can you tell us what happened, the day that you heard

Martin described how he was in work that day, underground in the Mater Hospital, when he got a notification from his ring doorbell camera. Because he was underground he said he couldn't hear everything that was being said, but that he could see there were Gardaí at his door and they mentioned an accident, "I knew very little," he said. 

"I rang Siobhán, and she was indecipherable on the phone, I couldn't make out what she was saying, I just heard Grace was in an accident so I immediately dropped everything, I just left," Martin said.

"Horrible day," Siobhán recalls emotionally, "20 to 4 I got a knock on the door, it was the guards, and I knew Grace's phone was never out of her hands, it had pink flowers on the back of it, and he handed it to me and asked if I knew who owned it and I said my daughter, he said she's been in an accident and I asked was she OK and he didn't answer me.

READ NEXT: Have you seen Rimantas? Concern growing for 37-year-old man missing nearly two weeks

"He said you need to get to Connolly hospital and I said please tell me my child is OK. There were two guards there and he said you just need to go. I had my son and I panicked, I was like a headless chicken, I was just running around I didn't know what to do."

Siobhán said she ran to a neighbours house to tell her that Grace had been in an accident and the Gardaí wouldn't give her anymore information and asked her if she could watch her son while she went to went to the hospital.

She then said another car pulled up with two more Gardaí who then rushed her to the hospital, "I was on my own, there was nobody with me".

Siobhán remembers being in the back of the car and seeing a a row of police, "I knew, I just knew...and they told me to stay in the car that they needed to check. She was then told to go to the family room, and "everybody knows the family room is not good".

Sat in the room with a nurse on either side of her, both holding her hand and they said "I'm so sorry, but your daughter has passed".

Siobhán said she had received a text a few days later from someone who said they had heard her "howl" from the room, "I was screaming that my baby had gone...I had to ring everyone and tell them and I was on my own for a while".

Her husband Martin and their other daughter arrived shortly after when Siobhán was told that Grace's heart had been beating steadily for "the last five minutes" and Siobhán thought "thank god, she heard me". 

The doctors told them they could go in and see their daughter, but Siobhán said that image will "haunt her for the rest of my life".

"Grace had tubes everywhere and the blood was rolling from her ears, from her nose, and her mouth. The whole side of her head was black, and I went to touch her arm and I was told not to touch her arm because it was badly broken, but I could hold her hand. She was covered in a sheet and her hand was black and blue and her legs were completely mangled."

They were told they had to leave and that Grace was being brought down for a CT scan but they were reassured that her heart was beating. They told Siobhán that they can fix broken bones but that they needed to see the internal injuries on her brain.

"She came back from the CT and were told we could go back in again. I went back in and I told her to fight. We were told we had to leave again and at that stage, I think we all had hope. The doctor came back in again and said 'I am so sorry but you have to say goodbye."

READ NEXT: Son and daughter of popular Irish publican plead guilty to violent assault in hotel

Wiping tears from her eyes, Siobhán said their whole family was in the room at this stage.

"I used to sing this song to her You are my Sunshine when she was a baby, and I started to sing it to her. I just remember walking in to that room so angry and wanting to scream and I couldn't.

"Leaving that hospital, knowing that I'm leaving my baby there in the morgue, and I couldn't be with her, it was the hardest thing.

"I couldn't sleep that night, I actually went up to the road that night and stood in the middle of the road waiting for a car to hit me, cuz I wanted to be with her. It was so hard, it broke my heart."

Visibly upset, Muireann then got up and sat beside Siobhán, and placed her hand on her knee. 

Siobhán said the day after, her good friend rang her and said she wanted to do a walk for Grace, the one she never got to do, which Siobhán thought was a lovely idea, but said she didn't know if she would be able to take part. Her friend said she had completely understood Siobhán but rang her later in the day to tell her that hundreds of people had turned up from the community to support her and her family.

At this point, Siobhán said that she had to go to "support my baby". Siobhán said she wasn't expecting to talk that night but was so overwhelmed by the support and by everyone that had shown up.

Martin then said that they had met the Minister for Transport and the Minister for road safety and is hopeful that legislation will be drafted in the coming weeks to ban the use of scramblers in public spaces.

Muireann said that it was unfortunate for the two that they had to become campaigners at such a devastating time in their lives but asked Martin if there was anything he would like to say to the parents who allow their young kids to ride scramblers.

"If you love your children, why would you let them on a machine that's going to propel them 100km/h down a road with little or no safety equipment? There's no safety in them. In a car you have some chance, with them, there's no chance.

"If nothing is done, it's going to happen again and again and again. I work in A&E, and e-bikes, scooters, quads, scramblers...the figures are there. I think 80% of all head injures going in to A&E is to do with them vehicles. It's not just made up, it's real."

READ NEXT: ALERT! 'Do not take' - Popular supplements pulled from Irish shelves amid salmonella fears

Following on from another devastating weekend where seven people were killed on Irish roads, including a 16-yea-old girl from Navan , Mia Lily Keogh O'Keeffe, who was killed following a hit and run while she was walking her beloved dog Bowie, who was also sadly killed, Siobhán had a message for road users.

"In particularly with red lights, the speed people go at, whether you're on an e-scooter, an e-bike, a car, a motorbike, they way they disobey a red light is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, and that's something that needs to change, and hopefully again we will get a meeting with the minister for road safety, and this is something that I want to bring up to him, and Dublin City Council, about the roads."