Nine-year-old Hannah Teklic had spent the weekend dancing around the house, doing cartwheels and being exactly who she’d always been: energetic, kind and full of life.

It was a regular school night when the Sydney schoolgirl went to bed after a regular day.

The next morning, when she woke up complaining of a few aches and pains, her parents, Wasima and Ivan, never imagined the last words they said to her would be their last.

“She had a sore neck from dancing and doing cartwheels over the weekend, and I thought that was causing it, so I gave her some painkillers,” her mum, Wasima, 50, told the Herald Sun.

“She laid back down but then she started seizing, she rolled out of bed and her eyes looked like she was half asleep.

“It all happened very quickly.”

Hannah Teklic died suddenly at just nine-years-old. Image: Supplied.
Within hours, Hannah suffered multiple seizures before doctors discovered she had experienced a catastrophic brain bleed caused by an undiagnosed arteriovenous malformation (AVM), a tangle of abnormal blood vessels in the brain.

An ambulance was rushed to the family’s Bardwell Park home, with Hannah still breathing and maintaining a steady heartbeat when paramedics arrived.

She was taken to St George Hospital, where doctors performed emergency surgery and inserted a drain into her brain to relieve pressure caused by excess fluid.

Later that day, Hannah was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

“She was breathing the whole time, but she wasn’t responsive,” Ivan, 40, said.

“She kept wriggling under the bed, having seizures, and I kept trying to move the bed out of the way; it was horrible.”

Tragically, two separate rounds of tests confirmed Hannah was officially brain-dead.

Hannah’s father Ivan posted a tribute to his daughter. Image: Facebook
Now, her devastated parents are sharing the story of the little girl they called their “best buddy” as their community rallies around them in grief.

“She wouldn’t hurt a fly,” her parents shared, recalling how Hannah would carefully catch insects inside the house and release them outside because she didn’t want them harmed.

It’s a detail that perfectly captures the gentle, empathetic little girl they say “felt more than she thought”.

Hannah loved piano, athletics and spending time with friends. She had recently won a medal at a school athletics carnival and, just days before she died, had been laughing and doing cartwheels around the house.

Her parents now belive Hannah was with them for a short time “to make us better people”, adding the little girl was “our best buddy”,.

In a heartbreaking act of love, her parents kept her on life support through Mother’s Day weekend so they could spend a few final days with their daughter before saying goodbye.

“She was so healthy and so fit, there was nothing medical going on; she even went to school the day before,” Ivan told the publication.

“That’s the shocking thing, she didn’t deserve this, she was so young.”

“Even if the ambulance came quicker, I don’t think that would have done any good because her brain was gone straight away, and we knew there would be no recovery.

“I kept hugging her, I kept crying, I kept trying to squeeze her hand, but she wasn’t responding, she wasn’t there.”

A community in mourning

As news of Hannah’s death spread, tributes began pouring in from friends, classmates and members of her sporting community.

In an online tribute, her sports club described Hannah as a cherished teammate and friend whose loss had deeply shaken the community.

“Hannah loved playing football with her friends and had been part of Marrickville FC for 3 years. Our hearts are broken,” the post read.

A GoFundMe created to support Hannah’s parents describes the unimaginable grief of losing their “beautiful girl” so suddenly, with supporters rallying to ease the financial burden, for funeral costs and ongoing expenses, as the family navigates every parent’s worst nightmare.

The fundraiser has already attracted an outpouring of donations and messages from strangers touched by Hannah’s story.

For those left behind, it’s the small memories that now matter most: the cartwheels in the lounge room, her love of animals, the little girl who hated wearing socks and who cared too deeply to let even a fly get hurt.

And for her parents, the silence left behind is incomprehensible.

“She was our whole world.”

Her father wrote a touching tribute to her on Facebook, and his final words were, “We take solace in the fact that she’s home now, safe. To everyone that helped us get through the past days; you know who you are and Wasima Lamrani and I love and appreciate you. Hannah, we love you so much. We’ll see you soon.”

Hannah will be laid to rest in Ireland with her loved ones.

Originally published as ‘Our whole world’: Parents tragic loss of their 9yo daughter from brain bleed