Toddler strangled as head is trapped between stair gates
Toddler Xander became wedged between gates AN ADVENTUROUS boy of nearly two strangled himself after becoming trapped between two child gates placed by his mother to keep him safe.
Xander Stephenson got his arm and neck wedged between the gates which had been installed in his bedroom doorway, an inquest heard.
The tragedy happened on September 13, two weeks before his second birthday.
Xander had become “increasingly persistent and successful” at getting out of his bedroom, the inquest was told. He used toys to help him to climb over one gate and had managed to crawl downstairs.
His mother, Samantha Pickford, 26, a trainee childminder of Poulton, near Blackpool, feared for his safety and borrowed a second gate to use above the existing one after getting advice from other parents.
She told the inquest in Lancaster: “Xander started climbing as soon as he could move.
“One night he climbed out of the cot about 50 times and that is when I decided to put the first stair gate in.
“The stair gate worked fine for a couple of months, until he started to use toys to climb over.
“Then one morning I came downstairs and he had emptied washing powder all over the floor.
“He had a spoon in his hand and was going to eat it.
“I was looking for something to help me keep him in his bedroom because I was scared I would come down one morning and find him dead.”
It was then that the second gate was fitted. But just 36 hours later Xander squeezed his arm and neck between the two and became trapped.
The bottom bolts on the top gate became loose, leaving the gate swinging and fixed by only two top bolts, holding the boy between them.
Recording a verdict of accidental death, Coroner Dr James Adeley said Miss Pickford’s decision to install a second stair gate seemed “sensible”.
He told her: “You must not blame yourself.”
In a statement Xander’s grieving father, Mark Stephenson, 33, said: “He was just a baby.’’