A three-year-old girl was maimed for life after the pushchair she was sat in collapsed and sliced off part of her finger.

Chantelle Bartlett was being pushed in the ‘Fifi and the Flowertots’ pushchair from Mothercare, by her mother, 24-year-old Beckie Yates, in their hometown of Swindon, Wiltshire. As Miss Yates lifted the strollers front wheels to mount a kerb, the entire unit collapsed on itself with Chantelle trapped inside. In the force of the collapse her fingers became caught in the metal frame of the pushchair and sliced off the end of Chantelle’s fourth finger and broke and dislocated her thumb.

Miss Yates who is no longer in a relationship with Chantelle’s father Matthew Bartlett, said: “I lifted the buggy up onto the kerb and it just snapped shut and Chantelle was screaming. I saw her left hand was trapped and got it out of the pushchair when a load of blood from her right hand flicked up at me. I just started crying.”

Miss Yates and her daughter who had been out shopping that day with her aunt Danielle Bartlett rushed to a nearby bus station where the staff administered first aid to help stem the blood. The young girl was then taken to Great Western Hospital in Swindon where she underwent surgery to repair her broken thumb. Sadly the severed digit was never found and so doctors were unable to reattach it.

This was the second faulty model of the pushchair that Miss Yates had been given by Mothercare in just six weeks. The first pushchair fell apart shortly after purchasing it last December. Mothercare refused to exchange it for another model and so the family was given the same pushchair. Outraged Miss Yates said: “Despite our protests they wouldn’t exchange it for anything other than the same one – and now my daughter has suffered this terrible injury. It’s a disgrace – if they don’t withdraw the pram from the store I will be taking this matter to court. I don’t want another little child to suffer like my daughter has.”

She added: “I can’t believe that Mothercare are still selling this pram. It has maimed my daughter for life and is clearly not safe to be on sale.”

This is apparently the second accident to arise from this make of pushchair. Back in 2004 Tony Holland, aged 36, reported the matter to Trading Standards after her young daughter Aimee also lost her finger when the pushchair she was in, collapsed whist out strolling. An inquiry’s findings were inconclusive and the pushchair remained on sale. After hearing of the latest accident, Mrs Holland said to the Swindon Advertiser: “I could have been sick when I heard about Chantelle.”

Mothercare has insisted that this model of pushchair will remain on shelves in its stores at a price of £49.99, because of its “excellent” safety record. A spokeswoman for Mothercare stated that they while they take the family’s concerns very seriously they would not be withdrawing the pushchair from sale until investigations by Trading Standards had been completed. She said: “We believe that our customers can have confidence in this pushchair. We have no reason to believe that there is a fundamental issue with it. All of our strollers and pushchairs comply with the European and British safety standards and those standards are extremely stringent. They are also product-tested in the factory.”

Chantelle is now recovering at home with her mum and six-year-old sister Sophie.