After losing her “happiest little boy” to a blind cord strangulation while playing at home, a grieving mother has issued a warning to parents.
When Kane Davidson, age 1, was playing with his older brother at his family’s Oldham home in January of this year, he got entangled in the cord and suffered a fatal brain injury.
Natasha Ogden, the baby boy’s mother, spotted him after first believing he was playing hide and seek before realising the heartbreaking truth.
Kane, who would have turned two in March, passed away in the hospital several days later despite the best efforts of the medical staff.
A Rochdale Coroner’s Court inquest last week determined that his death was “accidental,” and now Ms. Ogden is advising parents to try and prevent the same thing from happening to other families.
She said: ‘It’s something you think will never happen to you. It’s something you read in the news or magazines.
‘You might not see it as danger but you need to make sure you tie them away from your children. It’s not mandatory for them to be checked but it should be.’
When she discovered Kane unconscious and entangled in the cord at her home in Greenacre, Oldham, on January 28, she screamed horrifyingly, which was heard by the neighbours.
A neighbour assisted the devastated mother by frantically attempting to resuscitate the toddler while they waited for the paramedics who were heading to the scene.
Sadly, he could not be saved since he had experienced a cardiac arrest brought on by asphyxiation and hypoxic brain damage, which occurs when the brain does not receive enough oxygen.
At the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, he was put into a coma and passed away a few days later on February 1.
After Callum Davidson, the father of both Ms. Ogden and Kane, shut off her son’s life support the day after she turned 23, Ms. Ogden declared in February that she would never again celebrate her birthday.
Kane had been playing with his older brother Callum on what had otherwise been a typical day at their home.
Ms. Ogden claimed that after using the restroom, she returned and was unable to hear her typically “loud” boy.
She reportedly said to the Manchester Evening News, “I saw his reflection in the window in the front bedroom.”
I moved the curtain thinking he was playing hide and seek, but he wasn’t.
She said that she believed her son might have slipped while ‘messing about,’ climbing up onto the window sill, and then been stuck in the blind.
The devastated mother claimed there were no fittings on the wall to secure the blind cords, and she vowed never to return to the rented house where the incident occurred.
Paying tribute to him, Ms Ogden said: ‘Kane made the family. He was really cheeky and happy all the time.
‘He was just the happiest little boy you would ever meet. Batman was his favourite. As soon as he smiled, everybody else would.’