Kiera Larsen hailed a hero after giving up her life to save two toddlers

TRIBUTES have poured in for a 10-year-old girl who was killed after pushing two toddlers out of the way of an oncoming car.

KIERA Larsen, 10, was playing with two young toddlers when a car started rolling down a hill towards them. What she did next cost Kiera her life but has seen her hailed as a hero.

The Independent reports that she was playing with two-year-old Emma and one-year-old Adison when a parked Mercedes started reversing down a hill.

Kiera is said to have instinctively pushed the two young girls out of the way but the car struck her and pushed her through a fence.
She died from her injuries in a California hospital.

Alissa Jenkins, the mother of the two children Kiera saved, told Fox 5 that she had no idea how to repay Kiera’s sacrifice to her family.

“She is truly a hero. She will forever be my kids’ guardian angel,” she said. “She saved both my daughters’ lives. These are my two kids that I have and both of them could’ve been gone in an instant and she stepped in and took over and did what she knows best to do — and that’s to protect those around her.”

Ms Jenkins showed the scratches on her daughters that they received when Kiera pushed them out of the way.

A GoFundMe page has been set up for Kiera’s family to help with expenses. It has already raised more than double the $US30,000 target and received messages of support from around the world.

Police officer Kevin Pearlstein said an investigation is underway to find out what made the car shift to neutral.

“A child died heroically, I mean if you think about it, she sacrificed herself for another small child,” he said. “We’re going to do an inspection on the vehicle, find out why this happened, find out if there was some sort of malfunction on the vehicle and go from there.”