A THREE-WEEK-OLD baby may have died when her 18-stone dad rolled on top of her as they slept in bed, an inquest heard. Tom Coomer had placed little Lydia-Louise Coomer between him and her mum Ebony-Jade Pearson after she started to cry at home in Hanley, Staffordshire. But he was woken by Ms Pearson screaming […]
A THREE-WEEK-OLD baby may have died when her 18-stone dad rolled on top of her as they slept in bed, an inquest heard.
Tom Coomer had placed little Lydia-Louise Coomer between him and her mum Ebony-Jade Pearson after she started to cry at home in Hanley, Staffordshire.
But he was woken by Ms Pearson screaming when she found Lydia unresponsive and lying on her side, with her head pressed into her dad’s back, around 7.30am on September 27, 2016.
An ambulance was scrambled to the couple’s flat, and Lydia was raced to hospital, but she was later pronounced dead.
The dad told cops he believed he must have laid on Lydia “as there was no other explanation” after he went into the bedroom to sleep around 3.30 am.
In a police interview, Mr Coomer said: “I picked Lydia up out of her cot and sat on the bed and gave her another feed and I put her back into the cot.
“After putting her into the cot, she started to cry, so I picked her up out of the cot and put her into the bed in between myself and Ebony.
“I was sat up playing games on my phone and I was going to put Lydia back in her cot.
“At 4am, Lydia started to cry, but then fell asleep again. At 4.30am, a notification came through on my phone and that is the last time I can recall and I fell asleep.
“I don’t know what time it was, but I was woken by Ebony screaming and I saw Ebony cradling Lydia in her arms and she looked lifeless. Ebony was crying and I ran to the reception to get help.
I was woken by Ebony screaming and I saw Ebony cradling Lydia in her arms and she looked lifeless
Tom Coomer
“I must have laid on Lydia as there is no other explanation. I’m a big man, I weigh 18 stone and I’m 5ft 11. I must have rolled over during the night.”
In a police interview, Ms Pearson said the couple smoked cannabis “but never smoked inside the flat”.
She said found Lydia “blue and pale” on the morning of September 27 and tried to tell her partner “he was squashing her”.
Ms Pearson said: “On September 26, Lydia was put in her cot at 7.30pm and she woke at 10pm for a feed and I went to bed at 11pm and Tom stayed up. Lydia woke me at about 3am crying and Tom fed her sitting up in bed.
“I woke up and thought it was unusual that Lydia hadn’t woken me up. I then realised that Lydia was in the bed to my right.
“Lydia was on her right side and was facing Tom in the bed who was on his right side sleeping facing away from me and Lydia was pushed into his back.
“I pulled Lydia up and she was blue and pale. I tried to wake Tom up, telling him that he was squashing her, and I sent him for help and I laid Lydia down on the bed.
“I gave her two breaths and then the ambulance attended.”
Pathologist Dr Roger Malcomson, who performed Lydia’s post-mortem, said there was insufficient evidence to say that the baby’s death was caused by asphyxiation.
He gave cause of death as unascertained and warned about the risks of co-sleeping.
Dr Malcomson told the inquest: “”What has been stated by the parents may be true, but I haven’t seen any contributory evidence in post-mortem sufficient to confirm it as a cause of death.”
Assistant coroner Sarah Murphy recorded a narrative conclusion. She said: “Lydia was found unresponsive in her parents’ bed and her face was in close proximity to her father’s back.
“There is insufficient evidence to establish to the required standard the death was as a result of over laying or causing accidental obstruction of the air ways.”
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