“My body just went numb and I said ‘She was pregnant. She’s pregnant’

A SPEEDING car. A split second. The crunch of metal on metal. And a man’s world collapses.

A SPEEDING car. A split second. The crunch of metal on metal.

And a man’s world collapses.

It’s been just five weeks since Hobart bakery worker Daniel Stirling lost the love of his life Sarah Paino in a car crash, and amid the loss, had his newborn son thrust into his uncomprehending arms.

The 28-year-old’s heart-wrenching story of immobilising grief and an incredible miracle is showcased tonight on Channel Seven’s Sunday Night.

The interview, by Sunday Night host and journalist Melissa Doyle, is an arresting illustration that the tragic difference between “what if?” and “it’s lucky that” is sometimes the outcome.

For Stirling, it became a reality in the space of just 20 minutes in the early hours of January 22, 2016, when life as he knew it was sideswiped.

His 32-weeks-pregnant partner, Sarah, 24, was killed when an allegedly stolen car smashed into hers just minutes after she’d dropped him at work. Emergency workers realised within minutes she was pregnant and would not survive, but her unborn baby might.

Their frantic efforts, conducted as she was dying and the couple’s two-year-old son Jordan was extracted, somehow unhurt in the back seat behind her, are Stirling’s reason for going on.

“I could have had everyone wiped from me — Jordan and Caleb included,” Stirling tells Sunday Night.

“I could have had everyone wiped from me”: Daniel Stirling holds baby Caleb. Picture: Supplied by Channel Seven

As his voice trails off, your heart breaks. The expression is earnest. The demeanour is stoic. But the faint tremor as he speaks reveals, as much as what he actually says, the depth of his grief, and the love for his two sons.

Doyle spent around two weeks with Stirling and the family — watching, talking, questioning, holding back tears, sometimes succumbing to them — to bring the story together.

“I just want to honour him, and his family,” said Doyle.

“He wanted to talk, to thank those who saved his sons, those who have opened their hearts and wallets in incredible numbers, those who are supporting him.

“He is overcome by grief. He has lost his partner, but those two little boys occupy his every thought.

“That’s Sarah’s legacy. He adored her. He wants people to know how extraordinary she is and how much he loved her.

“He’s an extraordinary man, so softly-spoken, so humble. I look at him and he is broken with grief, and then he says, ‘I want my boys to grow up to be good young men, that is my job,’ and you are just knocked sideways.”

The story shows the incredible race to save baby Caleb, as well as the moment Stirling’s world collapsed.

“I loved her. I still do”: Daniel Stirling with partner, Sarah Paino and their first son, Jordan, before the tragedy. Picture: Supplied by Channel Seven

Grainy CCTV footage shows police arriving at Stirling’s workplace, ask “Are you Daniel?” and tell him they have some bad news.

His arms raise in the air, hands clutching around his head, his body pitches forward.

“My body just went numb and I said, ‘She was pregnant. She’s pregnant,’” Stirling tells Doyle.

Of meeting Sarah seven years ago, he says: “We clicked ... I knew I had found my companion.

“I’m never going to get to hear her voice again — her smile ... nothing.

“I loved her. I still do. I don’t think I am going to find anyone that will come close to her.

“And I don’t think I really want to.”

His face brightens when he talks about baby Caleb and Jordan.

“You see Sarah in him (Caleb) all over. I thank my lucky stars he’s here and Jordan’s here,” he says.

Meeting the doctors and medics who gave him Caleb, his thanks is more powerful in its simplicity.

“Thank you for saving my boy’s life,” he says.

And he’s not the only one fighting tears.

Sunday Night airs at Channel Seven at 8.30pm on Sunday.

Originally published as “My body just went numb and I said ‘She was pregnant. She’s pregnant’