Deadly bath splash

Press, 25 January 1989, Page 10

Deadly bath splash

NZPA-PA London A baby died from shock when she was splashed by her big brother as they played in the bath, an inquest heard yesterday. Helena Chesney, aged five months, instinctively held her breath and suffered a heart attack. Attempts by her parents, who are both doctors, failed to revive her. A pathologist, Dr Peter Berry, who carried out an autopsy, said she did not drown but died from “a very unusual and rare condition.” Her nanny, Miss Caroline Battlebury, told the inquest at Bristol Coroner’s Court that the baby was lying on her back in shallow water. Her two-year-old brother, Alastair,

who was also being washed, splashed her as he played with his bath toys. The girl suddenly turned her head to one side and stopped moving, Miss Battlebury said. “I knew something was wrong because children usually splutter when they dip in water. But she did nothing,” she said. “I picked her up and tipped her over my hand. The water was sufficiently shallow for her. She liked to just lie back.”

In a statement, the baby’s father, Dr David Chesney, said he and his wife rushed to the bathroom of their home at St Martins, Long Ashton, near Bristol, and made frantic attempts to revive her. The Avon Coroner, Donald Hawkins, recorded a verdict of accidental death