A Mountain Isn't Far To Fall

Yesterday, Olivia fell down a flight of stairs at Grandma's. I was walking in front with Grace on my shoulder, leading the way to the living room, where Olivia was due to have her afternoon nap. Olivia was following a few steps behind me. K___ was about to follow us up but was still in the kitchen. Grandma's house is a townhouse, so the kitchen is in the basement, and the reception rooms are on the level above. The staircase is a run of about fifteen steps with no turn other than at the very top - these old houses have high ceilings - and with a concrete floor at the bottom.

To the best of my knowledge, Olivia wasn't mucking about or doing anything stupid, As far as I know, she was climbing the stairs as she has done hundreds of times. Yesterday, Olivia got something wrong, and, as I reached the top, I...

I was going to say 'I heard something', but the truth is that I don't know whether I did. I don't know whether we've done this a million times before and I always check where she is and immediately forget about it because she's fine. Thinking about it today, I wonder whether I actually brushed against her when I turned or if I scared her when I turned. My conscious memory is that I turned because she was falling and I was nothing to do with it but I couldn't swear 100% I wasn't responsible.

Whatever it was, I looked back to see her falling, bouncing off steps with a terrifying clatter as she went and coming to rest on the concrete floor below. At some point in this, I yelled, 'Oh, my god!' (which was, I remembered a part of my brain dispassionately thinking at the time, surprisingly expletive-free) and ran down the stairs as quickly as I could with the baby clasped to my shoulder. K___ was saying, 'What happened, what happened?' having been in the wrong place to see.

Even before I got there, I could see Olivia was moving and then she began to bawl. I recall K___'s mum arriving at the kitchen door, but whether I was there first or second, I'm not sure. I think I picked Olivia up and passed her to her ashen-faced mother (it may have been Grandma). Grandma was saying, 'It's all right; she's not badly hurt; she crying,' but it was only when K___ had her that I could really think again. Poor Olivia was bawling for all she was worth, but the fact that she was moving her head around and actively clasping her mother's neck did indeed suggest she couldn't be too badly hurt. I could feel tears pricking behind my eyes and my heart racing and my legs tremble with the adrenaline shock of it all.

K___ pulled Olivia back from her shoulder to have a look at her. There was a tiny spot of blood on her nose - we suspect from being scraped against carpet or floor - but facially, other than being scarlet with upset and wet with tears, she seemed unmarked. 'Can you show Mummy the ow?' Olivia immediately pointed at the right side of her head, and said, 'Ow, Mummy! Ow!' K___ reported a bump, though not obviously serious. After we got her talking, Olivia gradually calmed down and just a few short minutes from when she'd fallen, she seemed fine, if understandably subdued. Grandma was all calm reassurances about how children are very resilliant and bounce nicely and eventually we calmed down too.

We took Olivia upstairs and laid her on the sofa while Grandma got her some warm milk. We kept her awake for a bit and kept checking her for signs of confusion or other symptoms of concussion, but she seemed fine. After a while, she slipped herself down onto the floor. 'Are you ok, 'Livia?' I asked. 'Did you fall down the stairs?'

'Yeh,' she said, and reached for her toys.