Yahoo News Girl, two, died after she choked on a cocktail sausage
A two-year-old girl died after she choked on a cocktail sausage as her mother cooked her dinner.
Mia Atkins was rushed to hospital after choking on the sausage, but an inquest heard that paramedics put a breathing tube in the wrong place.
The two-year-old, from Greenhithe, Kent, had been out for the day on June 30 last year when her mother Beth started to cook dinner for the child, her sister Lauren and Lauren’s children, at around 7.30pm.
The children were given cocktail sausages while they waited for their dinner but shortly after Beth heard her sister scream “she’s choking”.
An inquest at Maidstone’s Archbishop Palace heard the toddler was turning blue and bleeding from her nose and mouth.
Beth tried to contact emergency services but only managed to reach a call handler on the third attempt, in which time Mia had lost consciousness and was in cardiac arrest.
An ambulance eventually arrived, a paramedic put breathing tubes in and Mia was rushed to Darent Valley Hospital.
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But solicitor James Weston, representing Mia’s family, claimed her chances of survival were reduced because the endotracheal tube was put in her oesophagus rather than the trachea, so she didn’t get enough oxygen.
Mia was in cardiac arrest for around 30 minutes, the inquest heard, and Beth was told her daughter was classed as brain dead. The toddler died on July 1.
The paramedic, from South East Coast Ambulance Service, who was the first on the scene, told the inquest he was sure it was in the right place and could have been knocked out while Mia was being moved.
But consultant anaesthetist Dr Francoise Lossifidis claimed the pipe was too far down the oesophagus to have simply fallen out of the trachea and down the food pipe and said the fact the two-year-old was turning blue showed did not have enough oxygen in her body.
Dr Lossifidis also said she removed a 2cm piece of sausage from Mia’s throat, which - while it wasn’t blocking her airway - should have been removed.
A post-mortem result gave Mia’s cause of death as upper airway obstruction.
The inquest was adjourned until October.
