A 10-month-old girl choked to death in a street as her Chinese mother tried her best to explain to neighbours what was wrong.
The mother ran into the street in Darlington to raise the alarm after her baby choked on a piece of apple. The baby was taken to hospital but later died.
There's been a coroner's investigation although the death was not being treated as suspicious. The pathologist said it was highly unlikely that anyone could have saved the baby once she started to choke.
It is believed the baby's mother was an asylum seeker who lived alone and who didn't speak English very well.
Eyewitness Robert Winn, 53, a retired lorry driver, said the baby's mother rushed out of the house and knocked on neighbours' doors. He said: "Then she sat on the pavement with the baby in her arms. It was like she was holding a kid's doll, the baby was limp and her arms were flopping down and the mother was tapping her back. The mum was screaming, but no words were coming out, just screams."
He said neighbours soon came to her aid, and one tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
A hospital spokeswoman said: "We had a full resuscitation team ready and the family went straight into treatment when they arrived. They were seen immediately. At that stage, language wasn't a barrier as the treatment would have been the same."
September 2008 | 
Designer Toddlers
