�A Collier Row family are urging the community to pray for their seriously ill daughter who was involved in an accident with a car last week in front of horrified parents and children.

Little Aisha Abdurahim, four, is too unwell to be woken from a medically induced coma after the accident near Clockhouse Primary School, in Clockhouse Lane, Collier Row.

Doctors have been unsuccessfully trying to reduce swelling on her brain. Mum Kelly Whelband, 25, has been keeping a daily vigil at the bedside of her daughter – nicknamed Sleeping Beauty - in Great Ormond Street Hospital.

“I’m numb,” said Kelly, from Highfield Road. “It was the worst day of my life when Aisha was knocked down.

“Me and her dad have hardly left her side but we feel so useless.

“She’s my little princess but I can’t even hold her. All I can do is sit and stare. We’re asking people to pray that she gets better.”

She added: “The hospital staff have been amazing. They’re doing all they can for her. If it wasn’t for them she wouldn’t be here now.”

Kelly, who has two other daughters, aged six and three, is calling for speed humps to be installed in Clockhouse Lane.

Dozens of well-wishers have been visiting the little girl but medical staff have now had to restrict numbers to just close family and friends because Aisha’s condition has become too unstable to cope.

Hysterical

The toddler was being taken to the school’s afternoon nursery session, and was looking forward to her first sports day, when she was in collision with a black Ford Kuga around midday last Wednesday.

Another two vehicles were also involved in the incident. There have been no arrests.

She was taken by ambulance to Queen’s Hospital, in Rom Valley Way, Romford, with head and leg injuries but transferred to the specialist children’s hospital, in central London, when her condition deteriorated.

Kelly’s friend Lucy Hazelwood was one of the first on the scene after hearing “a loud bang” while dropping her son off at the nursery.

“I saw Aisha lying on the road and I just held her in my arms like a baby,” she said. “Kelly was hysterical. Aisha was crying and saying her foot hurt - no-one realised how badly injured she was then. There were mums and kids there looking on - I think everyone was in shock.”

The mum-of-three is now leading a campaign to raise cash for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.

Lucy and friends, wearing Pray for Aisha t-shirts, spent Wednesday collecting donations in and around Collier Row.

They plan to hit Romford town centre this weekend.

Lucy, 29, said: “I would like to thank all the shops in Collier Row for their generosity. Almost every one gave us money. We aim to raise as much as we can for the charity.”

To donate go to: www.justgiving.com/kelly-whelband