JEDDAH: Text messaging and cyber communication came in handy in saving the life of a 20-month-old child.

Sarah Al-Shammari, who survived a horrible car accident in Riyadh Friday afternoon along with her two siblings, was admitted to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in critical condition. Four members of Sarah’s family died in the accident and only the three children survived.

Sarah had internal bleeding after suffering a fracture to her skull. Her uncle, Bandar Al-Shammari, told Arab News that she underwent surgery early yesterday morning and is still under observation.

Sarah had lost too much blood in the accident and the hospital was looking for as much donors as possible to cover her need for blood before she was operated on.

Text messages circulated since Sunday urging people to donate blood to save the child’s life. Her uncle sent the messages with his phone number asking people to help Sarah.

“Since Sunday night, phone calls started pouring in. By Monday morning, the hospital’s blood bank received sufficient quantity of blood,” Al-Shammari said.

“People were really helpful and yesterday more than 60 persons donated their blood,” he added.

Al-Shammari told Arab News that this was the best way to make an urgent call to save Sara’s life.

Sarah has lost her father, mother, grandmother and a three-year-old brother in the accident. However, her two other brothers survived. The eldest one, who is eight years old, is in hospital with gangrene in one leg but her younger brother, who is five-year-old, is just fine.

“A tire blast caused the accident. We hope that the older boy’s leg won’t have to be amputated and his blood circulation would get back to normal,” said Al-Shammari.

Although Sarah’s blood type is O-negative, one of the rare groups, the blood bank received sufficient number of donors.

In a similar case, a young girl in Hail, who was in critical condition, needed urgent blood transfusion. Her family posted a plea for donors on online discussion forums. On the same day, hundreds of people went to the hospital offering to donate blood, covering her need for more than a week.