Dad Takes Eyes Off Toddler for a Moment, Then Mom Hears 'Sickening' Sound
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
A mom of two is urging fellow parents with young kids to stay vigilant and "install the baby gates" after her son had a serious accident in their home.
Vanessa Frankard, a Canadian marketing freelancer, shared a brief clip to her Instagram, @modernmixvan, of her 18-month-old son, Cedric, waiting in a British Columbia hospital with her husband and nursing a nasty head wound.
The accident occurred during the already-stressful process of moving. Frankard told Newsweek: "We moved from a condo, where everything was on one floor, to a duplex home, which is situated on three floors."
Moving is a stressful experience. In 2020, a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by OnePoll on behalf of North American Van Lines saw moving home rank as the most stressful life event (45 percent) ahead of breaking up or getting divorced (44 percent), and having a baby (31 percent).
Throw an 18-month-old and his 3-year-old brother Theodore into the mix, and it is fair to say Frankard and her husband Steve had their hands full. "Even without children, moving can be a chaotic and exhausting process, both physically and mentally. Your belongings are in disarray, routines are disrupted, and it takes time to settle into a new space and make it feel like home," Frankard said.
"What made our experience more stressful was the fact that we had purchased our new home but hadn't yet sold our previous one," Frankard added. "For several weeks, we were juggling both preparing to move and staging our old home for open houses. Managing this while parenting made things especially challenging."
By the time the family eventually moved, having opted to rent out their home, Frankard said they were undoubtedly "stretched thin."
At the urging of her mother-in-law, they had purchased baby gates for their new home. However, they had not yet been installed. "With 'top of the stairs' baby gates, they must be drilled into the wall to keep them in place," Frankard said. "We lacked a drill. It was just another to-do on our never-ending list."
That decision would come back to haunt them. The day of Cedric's accident had been a busy one, not least for Steve, who had spent the day preparing their old home for its new tenants. By the time they got home, Steve was exhausted, but still had the prospect of preparing their two sons for bed.
"The after-dinner to bedtime routine is one of the toughest parts of the day. We had child care for the actual moving day, but now it was pretty much the first night in our new home," Frankard said. "We were all on the second floor, trying to unpack and set up the kids' just enough to make it functional, while also managing the bedtime routine."
It was around 10 p.m. and while Frankard was busy getting Theodore to have a shower before going to sleep, Steve was doing laundry. Unknown to him, however, Cedric had discovered his indoor toddler bike and decided to take it for a ride.
"No one saw exactly what happened next, but while I was in the bathroom with Theodore, I heard a sudden, sickening thunk followed by the crash of what must have been the bike," Frankard said.
Cedric was found at the bottom of a short set of stairs. It was only four steps, but he was hurt. Frankard can still remember her husband shouting how they "need to go to hospital" as Cedric "needs stitches."
Still busy with Theodore, Frankard said she was "too scared to look" at what had happened. "I was angry, scared and upset," she said. "Angry that Cedric wasn't being supervised like he should have been, scared about the outcome of the fall, and just generally upset and freaking out."
The only crumb of comfort came from the fact she had heard her son screaming immediately after, meaning he hadn't been knocked unconscious. Steve fitted a gauze on Cedric's head wound before whisking him off to the hospital, leaving Frankard to clean the remaining blood on the stairs and in their bathroom.
They later Facetimed from the hospital where Cedric appeared back to his "usual spunky self." That was the moment Frankard shared in a video posted to her Instagram @modernmixvan. The clip went viral. Frankard hoped it would. Ultimately, Cedric needed only four stitches and appears to have escaped with little in the way of scarring, but it could have been worse.
Frankard's message is simple: "Install the baby gates," she said. "This was definitely a reminder and warning about preventive injuries."
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