PRESS RELEASE : Lynne Baird’s story – Knife Crime [September 2024]

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 11 September 2024.

Dr Lynne Baird MBE set up the Daniel Baird Foundation after her son was killed in 2017. On Monday 9 September, she attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

Daniel had got a new job on the day he died.

He was a very happy go lucky lad and that day he was particularly full of joy – he’d been after that role for a long time and had finally passed the interview stage.

“I’ll be able to get married now, Mum”, he said. “I’ll be able to get a mortgage and do everything I planned.”

He said he wouldn’t be out for long when he went out that night to celebrate, but I never saw him again.

I found out on a Saturday morning. I hadn’t been able to sleep for some reason. I remember the sun was very bright, it was a beautiful sunrise – but I had an uneasy feeling. I heard a car door outside, and I looked out the window. There was a police car and a female officer walking towards the door. I had the most awful feeling. She didn’t need to say anything.

“Are you Dan Baird’s mum,” she asked.

I said yes and she told me I needed to get to the hospital quickly, and to phone any other family members who should be there. That was it, she didn’t give me any more information.

By the time we got to the hospital it was too late.

The days following were awful. I don’t remember very much – I think I was in shock – but it was like someone had stuffed my head full of cotton wool, I couldn’t even hear properly.

At this point I had already started asking questions. What more could have been done to save Daniel after he had been stabbed? I think asking questions was the only thing that kept me sane.

I asked Dan’s brother, Tom, who is a doctor at the hospital Dan was taken to that night, what more could have been done for him.

He told me that if someone who knew what to do in case of a severe bleed had been there, or there had been some special equipment there he could have saved Dan, there might have been a different outcome.

Daniel died in the early hours of July 8th, 2017. We didn’t get his body back until the 13th of September 2017, and by November of that year we had the first bleed control kit in this country.

I was relentless. I spoke to everybody I possibly could. At first, it felt like nobody wanted to give me answers. It was very difficult, but you must do these things right.

In the end, I managed to get an interview with the Chief Executive of West Midlands Ambulance at the time, who agreed that there should be an advanced first aid kit to control severe bleeds available for members of the public.

It was decided they would develop a bleed control kit now available in various locations worldwide. They contain very simple components which can be used to stop severe bleeding, and they save lives.

The kits are designed so that in the event of an emergency, you don’t need any training to know what to do. That has always been the foundation of our campaign, and it has grown from there. We’ve worked with the police and fire service and have done lots of work with our local MP, Jess Phillips.

The West Midlands has developed a very advanced model, where a person can call the emergency services, say there has been a severe bleed, be directed to their nearest kit and given instructions on how to use it.

Severe bleeds can happen all the time – in workplaces, car accidents and dog attacks – and if there had been one available when Daniel was stabbed, things might have been very different for him and our family.

It’s always positive to get certain people round the table, as we did today, and I agree with many of the points made – primarily that prevention needs to start very early on in primary school, because by the time children reach secondary school it’s often difficult to reach them.

I believe that legislation announced by the Prime Minister is a step in the right direction – though we must always keep doing more.