Toddler, 2, dead after freak accident while wearing a hoodie

A two-year-old NSW boy has died as the result of tragic misadventure with his clothing, rather than a suspicious cause, NSW Police say.

Police responding to the call to a Fingal Bay home. Picture: TNV

A little boy who died at a Port Stephens home on Monday was involved in a freak accident when his hooded jumper became caught on a curtain rod.

NSW Police said the two-year-old’s death was not suspicious but instead the result of tragic misadventure when his clothing tightened around his neck.

Emergency services were called to a house in Fingal Bay just after midday, when the child’s distraught mother called triple-0.

“Officers attached to Port Stephens-Hunter Police District commenced CPR until NSW Ambulance paramedics and CareFlight doctors arrived, however, he died at the scene,” NSW Police said in a statement.

A two-year-old boy died in a freak accident at his family’s Port Stephens home on Monday. Picture: TNV

Neighbours recounted hearing the mother’s gut-wrenching screams when she found her son, who is understood to have been happily playing moments before the freak incident.

“They’re the most beautiful family … we are all still traumatised by yesterday,” one neighbour said.

“All we know is she (the child’s mother) was only out of the room like for a minute and he’s jumped up I think and it’s gotten snagged on the (curtain) rod.”

Police said a report would now be prepared for the Coroner.

The child was playing when his hooded jumper became caught on a curtain rod. Picture: TNV

The child’s death had haunting similarities to another tragedy in the same region in 2013 when toddler Jack Mackay died after innocently wrapping a loose curtain cord around his neck.

Jack was playing in his cot beside the window of the family’s Port Stephens home in August that year, when he unwittingly grabbed the cord and wound it around his neck.

His brave parents Clinton and Laura Mackay told The Daily Telegraph at the time they wanted it mandatory that all houses fitted with unsecured blind cords have them retrofitted to the wall or hooked up high to avoid a tragedy.

“It was such an avoidable accident and we just think it is so easy to fix this problem so that no other family has to go through this pain that we are feeling,” Mrs Mackay said.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said at least two children die in Australian homes each year as a result of curtain and blind accidents.

A mandatory standard for internal window coverings was declared in July 2010 and a separate regulation relating to installation services of window coverings came into effect in January 2015, the ACCC said.