A mother has urged parents with young children to check electrical wires in the home after an inquest heard how her 18-month-old daughter died when a cord from a baby monitor became wrapped around her neck.
Jessica Lacey Duggan was confirmed dead at hospital after the incident at her home on Bradenham Road, Shipdham, near Dereham, on October 25 last year.
An inquest at Norfolk Coroner's Court on Monday, March 25 heard how her parents, Jason and Danielle Duggan, had placed a baby monitor with a camera inside on a shelf in her bedroom, which was connected to a phone app and provided them with notifications.
After being put in her cot for a nap in the afternoon, Mr Duggan woke up to look at his phone and discover that the camera had moved position.
He went into Jessica's room at around 4.30pm to find that she had managed to get hold of the cord which ran down the back of the wall behind the shelf.
The ambulance, air ambulance and police all attended their home and she was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
Speaking after the inquest, Mrs Duggan said: 'We want to raise awareness, if I read about this I would want to change things around.
'She shouldn't have been able to get it but people might not know to check. We bought it to keep her safe.
'You just need to be so careful. We had to have the monitor over the bed so we could see her on the camera. It was tied to the wall behind the shelf, I just don't know how she even got it.
'Even one of the police officers went back and took some cables out, he had a similar sort of set up.
'We just don't know how she got it. When she pulled it we just don't understand why it didn't disconnect, it just didn't for some reason.'
A statement read out in court on behalf of PC Matthew Hill, who attended the scene, said there 'was nothing to suggest this was something other than a tragic accident' and the parents 'thought they were doing the right thing by having a monitor in the bedroom'.
Area coroner Yvonne Blake concluded that her death was caused by compression of the neck by ligature.
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