Baby Girl Drowns In Bath Tub When Her Mother Left To Get Towel

A 22-month-old baby girl drowned to death after her mother left her in the bath for just "one minute" as she went to grab a towel, an inquest heard.

Mia Olivia O’Sullivan was found floating face down in the tub after her mother left for a "very short time" while giving her a bubble bath at the family’s home in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, on January 17 last year.

The toddler’s mother, Joely Eastham-Jones, desperately tried to resuscitate her baby girl, but she was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

During a hearing in Ruthin on Tuesday, July 6, John Gittins, coroner for North Wales Central and North Wales East, said that Eastham-Jones had voluntarily given a statement in the Llandudno Police Station, soon after the incident.

Five minutes after giving the baby girl a bubble bath the mother reportedly asked the child if she was done.

The mother said that normally her baby girl would put up her arms to be lifted out but she didn't and "carried on playing with the bubbles", North Wales Live reports.

She realised there were no towels and that they were in the bedroom.

"She said 'Mummy's going to get towels' and left the bathroom," Gittins said.

"She could hear Mia talking and singing in the bath next door. She shouted her (Mia's) name to confirm she was there."

"Then a pink brush she had been playing with banged on the side of the bath."

"She ran in and found her lying face down in the water."

"She lifted her out. She was pink and floppy and not breathing."

The inquest heard how Eastham-Jones placed her daughter on the floor and performed CPR and after four or five compressions, the baby vomited water.

The mother then dialled 999 and paramedics responded to the scene within five minutes and rushed the child to Glan Clwyd Hospital before being airlifted to Royal Stoke University Hospital (RSUH) in Stoke-on-Trent.

Dr Mark Bebbington, a consultant paediatric intensive care specialist at RSUH, said he had been told that the child "was left in the bath for approximately one minute plus by her mother".

The doctors tried their best to save the child but she was pronounced dead the following day on January 18.

Dr Jo McPartland, a paediatric pathologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital on Merseyside conducted an autopsy and declared the cause of death was from multiple organ failure, consistent with drowning.

On Tuesday, the coroner ruled the baby girl’s death as an accident.

The coroner today ruled Mia’s death as accidental.

"She was left for a very, very short time by her mother in the bath, and sadly the circumstances which occurred thereafter were those which resulted in her passing," Gittins said.

"I would like to record my very sincere condolences to the family of Mia in her tragic loss."