AN INQUEST has been told how a child died when he placed a plastic bag over his head. The inquest in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, yesterday, was told that 22-month-old Robert Bonner was found on his bedroom floor at 7am on May 26th last year by his father, Joe.
The child’s mother, Barbara, said in a statement read at the inquest that she awoke at their home in Stranorlar to the sound of her husband “squealing and roaring”.
When she ran into Robert’s room, he was lying across her husband’s knee and he was saying that he thought the child was dead.
She grabbed the child, put him on the floor and attempted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Her husband told her he had taken the bag from around Robert’s head.
Ms Bonner’s statement said the baby must have found the bag in the room and put it over his head.
She took the child down to the living room and continued to try to revive him while her husband phoned for an ambulance.
Ms Bonner said that two days earlier, Mr Bonner was carrying Robert when he tripped while stepping over a stair gate. He fell downstairs, landing just inside the front door. Both were admitted to hospital and treated for minor bruising.
Ms Bonner told the inquest that her son “was shaken” from the incident but had shown no ill-effects.
State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy, who carried out a postmortem examination, ruled out the fall as a factor in the child’s death. She concluded that death was “consistent with but not diagnostic of plastic bag asphyxia”.
The jury returned a verdict consistent with the pathologist’s conclusion that death was due to plastic bag asphyxia.