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Girl, 5, dies after zip wire accident

Her mother told the Evening Standard she had been watching as her little girl played with friends and ran to save her.

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The schoolgirl sustained severe head injuries, and when paramedics arrived at Mile End Park just after 5.30pm on Friday, she was discovered in cardiac arrest.

“She was playing with three other girls in the play area and just a few minutes before it happened, she came and sat on my lap and we were chatting”, she said.

Classmates left emotional tributes at the park, describing her as a “kind pal” who was “ace at football”.

The eye-witness who asked not be named, a grandmother who regularly visits the park and often sees the family, said Alexia was one of four little girls balancing on wooden logs held up by poles when the logs suddenly crashed to the ground.

She was taken to an east London hospital where she was pronounced dead an hour later.

“Moments before she was on my lap, then she was lying in the recovery position with people doing CPR”.

Her mother said: “She was so happy playing, and all along I was watching her every move”. Everyone who saw her fell in love with her. She was really bright and sociable and very independent. “We shared a bed together and I keep rolling over expecting to see her, but she’s not there”.

Her uncle, Bismarck Amoo-Mensah, said: “My children are taking it very hard, they did everything together. We are all suffering but trying to be strong for Alexia’s mother, she’s in a lot of pain”.

‘At this early stage, officers believe the girl was injured in an accident involving the collapse of a tree to which a zip wire was attached.

Officers working alongside the Health and Safety Executive are carrying out a joint investigation into the circumstances of the incident.

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Tower Hamlets Council, which runs the park, confirmed the rope swing was part of the main play area rather than one erected by a member of the public.

Alexia Walenkaki suffered severe head injuries when a tree trunk from a rope swing in Mile End Park snapped and struck her