Four-year-old boy tragically dies getting head trapped in homemade stairgate

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A four-year-old boy tragically died after getting his head trapped in a homemade double stairgate, an inquest heard. Draco Chapman passed away on April 23, 2019, just weeks after becoming trapped between two stairgates that had been installed one on top of the other in a doorframe by his mother.

An inquest at Norfolk Coroner’s Court held before assistant coroner Johanna Thompson on Tuesday, heard that the youngster was discovered injured on April 2, 2019, by one of his older siblings.

According to Wales Online, he had attempted to climb the stairgates, but had gotten caught in a gap of about six inches between them at his home Osbert Close in Norwich.

He was taken to Norwich and Norfolk Hospital where he was placed in an induced coma before being transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, in Cambridge, and later a hospice, where he died on April 23.Dr Roddy O’Donnell, clinical director of the paediatric intensive care unit at Addenbrooke’s, said Draco died after suffering neurotic asphyxiation from accidental hanging, and a cardiac respiratory arrest.He said: “It was clear he had suffered serious and irreversible neurological injury.”The court heard that before his death, Draco had been diagnosed with a heart murmur and Noonan syndrome, a condition which can cause heart defects and developmental delays.Draco, who was one of six children, all of whom lived with his mother, was being looked after by an older sibling at the time of the incident while his mother was at a parents’ evening.Sergeant Graham Green, of Norfolk Constabulary, told the court in a statement that Draco was found injured by his sister and was taken upstairs by an older brother who carried out CPR on him and called the emergency services before his mother