LOS GATOS, Calif. -- With her smiling six-year-old daughter at her side, Allison Rix recounted Monday the horror of the moment she’ll never forget.

Rix’s young daughter was playing in the back seat of the car after soccer practice. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as they drove out of parking lot. Then tragedy struck.

A jump rope that was wrapped around the young girl’s wrist by a slip knot had dangled out of the window. It looped under the tire of the moving car. The slip knot of the rope tightened around the girl's wrist, slicing off her hand and hurling it out of the car.

“I was coaching my daughter’s soccer practice and walk to the car with the other moms,” Allison told reporters Monday. “I was loading the trunk with the soccer balls and Erica climbed into the car by herself. “

“The next thing I knew my daughter started screaming and I didn’t know why. I got out of the car and in a crack in the window was the remaining portion of her arm. It was impossible for me to make sense of what happened. I had no idea. I started screaming – ‘Where’s my daughter’s hand, Where’s my daughter’s hand!’”

Driving behind Rix was Jim Bailey, of Saratoga. He saw the girl's mother calling hysterically for help and stopped. He made a tourniquet put of his belt to slow the blood flow from the wound while another driver called emergency services and third found the severed limb.

“I had taken (emergency medical) training in college to be a lifeguard,” Bailey said. “I didn’t do anything with it at the time. But it was helpful…I am thankful that I had the training and I was there.”

Rix and her daughter hugged and thanked Bailey on Monday.

“This is a book on superheroes and every day I look at it with my son and my daughter,” an emotional Allison Rix said to Bailey. “It’s like a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ and we find the superheroes in the book. On Sept. 9, my superhero was right behind me … and I found him. So, thank you… Not only do my kids find superheroes in these books but they are out there and do exist.”

Surgeons were able to reattach Erica’s hand and repair the bones, veins and arteries. But it will take several more surgeries before they know how much feeling and functioning will return.

“She’s (doing) better than mom,” Allison Rix said of her daughter. “She gives me my strength every day. She’s in good spirits, but she has a tough time going to the hospital. We are there two days a week. It’s hard on her little body.”