Victorian coroner makes recommendations after three-year-old’s accidental hanging

A Victorian coroner has recommended changes to rental properties after a Doncaster toddler tragically died when a blind cord wrapped around his neck.

A Victorian coroner has recommended it be mandated that all blind and curtain cords be fixed to walls in rental properties after a mother tragically found her toddler hanging, with a blind cord wrapped around his neck, in their Doncaster lounge room.

Coroner Sarah Gebert last week released her findings relating to the three-year-old boy’s death in 2020.

According to the coroner’s investigation, the boy’s mother had given him some breakfast and switched on a TV show for him on the morning of September 10 before she took a shower.

When the woman was almost finished, her daughter, aged 10, walked into the bathroom to tell her a postman had delivered a parcel – and her brother was sitting on the front window sill but wouldn’t get down.

The woman recalled hearing her son “jumping around the lounge room” when she got out of the shower, and then quickly tried on the garment that had just been delivered.

She then walked into the lounge room. Not seeing her energetic son right away, she scanned the room before noticing he was hanging from the freestanding cord attached to the vertical blinds on the front window.

She ran towards her son, unhooked the cord from around his neck and commenced CPR.

An ambulance was called, arriving about 10.47am, and paramedics – observing the little boy was in cardiac arrest – started resuscitation but he was pronounced deceased at 11.16am.

In court documents, the boy’s mother described her son as “a very happy boy full of positive energy and was all about love”.

His family described him as “quirky, full of life and a very happy child” who loved to play and climb.

Police conducted an investigation but found no evidence of suspicious circumstances.

In preparing the findings, the Coroner’s Prevention Unit (CPU) identified two young Victorian children who had died in incidents involving these cords in the past decade.

In addition, 26 children were rushed to hospital due to blind and curtain cords wrapping around their necks between July 2010 and June 2020.

Most of these 26 children were aged between one and three years.

The coroner has recommended Consumer Affairs continue education campaigns about the risks of young children being around blind and curtain cords.

In a previous finding, a coroner investigating the death of a baby in similar circumstances noted the application of mandatory standards relating to blinds, curtains and window fittings post December 30, 2010, but the regulations – including for cords not to be installed so they loosely hang – were not retrospective.

They noted a Consumer Affairs Victoria campaign that encouraged parents to request free safety kits containing a safety device to loop cords around so they do not hang loose and found it was beneficial, but needed to be ongoing.

Coroner Gebert noted this public messaging was “paramount” so people with young children understood the risks.

Noting “the passing of such a young child was devastating”, she recommended the appropriate government minister consider mandating that blind and curtain cords be fixed to walls in all residential rental properties.

She also recommended improving the state‘s uptake of cord safety kits and recommended the minister add reference to ’blind cord affixed to the wall’ in its condition report for rentals.