A MUM recalled watching her two-year-old daughter dance in the car and play in the garden in the hours before she called 999 in a desperate bid to save her life.

Elsie-Lou Brown, from Thame, died in the early hours of December 27, 2018, after going into cardiac arrest on Boxing Day.

She was found by her mother, Gemma Lampett, who noticed the toddler had rolled out of her bed and was sleeping in a 'funny position'.

At an inquest at Oxfordshire Coroners Court yesterday Ms Lampett explained she had taken Elsie-Lou up to bed after the child fell asleep in the arms of her grandmother, Denise Wiles.

She said: “At about 5.30pm I took her up to bed. I checked on her every 15 minutes, I always do when I put one of my kids to bed – I don’t know why.

“She was in the same position every time I checked and the third time I went for a shower and she was still laying the same.

“I got [her brother] from downstairs and went to put him to bed, and I have still not forgiven myself for not checking her when I finished the shower in case I saw something that might have saved her life. I walked in the room and she was on her stomach and had rolled onto the mattress on the floor. I do not remember thinking that there was anything wrong, she always got herself into funny little sleeping positions.”

Ms Lampett said she called her mother upstairs to come and have a look at how Elsie-Lou was sleeping, who thought something ‘wasn’t quite right’.

Ms Wiles carried her onto the bed before hearing her gasp for breath and moving her into the hallway, where there was a ‘hard surface’ she could use to start CPR – something she had learned at work.

Ms Wiles’ husband Michael also gave evidence yesterday. He said he heard screaming and crying and rallied Elsie-Lou’s siblings into another room so they didn’t have to see her lying on the floor.

Elsie-Lou was was rushed to Stoke Mandeville Hospital by ambulance, where Ms Lampett met the girl’s father, Stuart Brown, and his mother - who Elsie-Lou had been living with in Thame at the time.

Ms Lampett explained: “She was not herself because she was sick in the day, but she was dancing in the car, she was playing outside and she was eating her dinner – I didn’t think there was anything serious.”

A forensic pathologist said Elsie-Lou succumbed to multi-organ failure and lack of oxygen because of a cardiac arrest.

The coroner said Elsie-Lou's cardiac arrest was likely to be caused by 'a natural but undetermined cause'.