His face was covered in flour and chocolate but my three-year-old boy was working hard. “Nearly ready, Mummy,” Harrison grinned, spooning the cake mixture into paper cases. Finally, he looked up, his giant blue eyes shining. “Finished,” he smiled. I put the fairy cakes in the oven while he ran off to watch his favourite cartoon, Go Diego Go!, about a little boy who swings around the world.
It was the same every day. We’d take my other two children Brandon, 12, and Conran, nine, to school, then come home to have fun together. We’d go for walks to spot his favourite yellow tractors, or do some painting, but what Harrison liked most was baking cakes. And he couldn’t get enough of his cartoon hero, Diego.
Watch the safety video
“Watch me,” Harrison would yell, putting on a rucksack like his hero, and jumping on his bike to ride around the house. He looked like an angel but he was a little adventurer.
Everyone thought I’d named him after Harrison Ford, the actor who starred in the Indiana Jones films, because he loved exploring. But actually I’d called him after the road leading up to my Mum and Dad’s graves. It was unusual, but meant a lot to me. It was my way of feeling close to them, I suppose, and the name suited his funny, bold little character.
It started off as such a happy day
Harrison’s voice pierced through my thoughts. “Are the cakes ready yet, Mummy?”
We were making them as a treat for his friends who were coming over to play the next day. He hadn’t seen them for a couple of weeks as I’d been in hospital having three cysts removed from my ovaries.
It was the first time I’d ever left Harrison and he’d insisted on making a surprise visit to me in hospital one night at 10.30pm. “What are you doing here?” I’d asked as he’d toddled in to my room with my partner Scott Joyce, 38.
“I missed you,” he’d said, clambering up on to my bed for a cuddle. “I wanted a kiss goodnight.” That was so like Harrison. He was only little but such a sweetheart. His hug had made me feel much better and now, two weeks later, I was home and recovered.
“Let’s get those out now,” I told Harrison, whose eyes widened as I put down the tray of chocolate cup cakes in front of him.
“They look yummy,” he grinned.
His friends thought so too as they devoured them the next day. The play date was a whirl of games and laughter, and it was 3pm before everyone left and we flopped down on the sofa.
As we watched TV, Harrison’s eyes grew heavy. “Time for a nap,” I whispered, giving him his bottle and covering him with his Bob the Builder blanket.
“Love you, Hachey,” I said, kissing him. He was almost asleep, so I tiptoed upstairs to the computer. We’d been looking at holiday villas and I wanted to check the price of the one Harrison liked.
Ten minutes later, I heard Brandon come in from school. “Hi, Mum,” he shouted. “Why’s Harrison standing by the window?”
I frowned, confused. I thought Harrison was asleep. Running downstairs, I saw Harrison on a chair by the bay window overlooking the garden. But why wasn’t he moving?
“Hachey,” I said, rushing over. Then I screamed. We had blinds at the window and one of the looped cords was stuck under his chin, strangling him.
“No, no!” I yelled, grabbing Harrison. He was lifeless as I yanked him free from the cord. His eyes were open but glazed. His face had a purple tinge. Desperate, I started giving him mouth to mouth.
“Come on,” I said, blowing air into him, and he began to be sick. The relief washed over me. “That’s it,” I said, stroking his face. Brandon must have called an ambulance because paramedics were suddenly there, and then Scott and Conran walked in.
Babbling, I told them what had happened, but didn’t stop to answer their questions. Hachey was being stretchered into an ambulance – I needed to be with him.
So I jumped into the back, leaving Scott to sort out our older boys and follow.
‘Save my boy’, I prayed to my parents
It was a 20-minute drive to Good Hope Hospital, Birmingham, and they were working to save my little boy the whole time.
“Mummy’s here,” I told Harrison, trying to sound calm. But inside panic was exploding through me. I’d only left him a few minutes. How had he got tangled up in the blind?
At the hospital, fear and guilt knotted in my stomach. “Please, Mum and Dad help me,” I prayed. “Save my little boy.”
But after an hour a priest appeared, followed by doctors and nurses. I thought I’d collapse.
“Harrison’s gone,” I heard someone say. But I was already screaming...
“Take me to him,” I managed to sob.
Harrison looked like he was asleep.
It wasn’t real. This was some awful dream where I was washing my little boy and dressing him in his pyjamas and slippers to go to sleep forever. I cradled him for hours.
Family and close friends came, but I couldn’t speak. “Come on love,” Scott said, but I didn’t want to leave my baby. They had to pull me away. My sister Tracey took us to her house.
“Someone must have done this,” I kept saying, crazed with grief. “How could it be an accident?” It was just too cruel. He’d been napping, and now this…
I couldn’t sleep, I just wanted to get back to the hospital mortuary to be with Hachey. First, we had to speak to our boys. “He’s up in heaven with Nan and Granddad,” I croaked as Scott and I held them.
We went back to the hospital. I spent all day with Harrison, holding him and trying to understand what had happened.
Had he spotted a tractor or was he pretending to be Diego, and tried to swing on the blind cord?
A post mortem found Harrison had died from asphyxiation but we’d never know what had made him go to the window.
I blamed myself. Why had I left him? All I could do now was give my little boy the best funeral. So I booked a carriage, pulled by two white horses.
It meant I had to finally say goodbye. I’d been going to see him every day, now I placed a letter inside his coffin telling him how much I loved him. I gave him one half of a gold ‘broken heart’ necklace. I wear the other half. Brandon gave him his boxing gloves while Conran put his Xbox controller in. Scott and I clung to each other throughout the funeral at Lichfield Cathedral.
Afterwards I became angry. Another little girl just 15 miles away had died five days after Hachey, tangled up in her bedroom blind.
She was just 16 months old and her mum was in pieces too.
We discovered looped cords were banned in America, Canada and Australia after similar tragedies.
So why weren’t they banned here in the UK?
I ran through the house, ripping down all my blinds, sobbing.
It was too late for Harrison, but I had to do something to stop this happening to another child. So with Scott and Tracey’s help we started Harrison’s Law – a campaign to ban looped cords on blinds.
We collected signatures on a petition to take to Downing Street to give to the British Prime Minister but we want to do more.
We want every mother in Britain and around the world to cut through each looped cord so it can’t happen again.
Every day I miss Hachey. Sometimes I wake up and for a few split seconds I forget and think he’s going to run in yelling, “Mummy!” and asking to bake cakes. Then the grief comes rushing back.
But I keep going for my boys, and for Harrison. He was so special he would have done something important with his life. Now if he can save just one child then his death won’t have been in vain.
450,000 blinds recalled in America after two-year-old girl reportedly strangled Blinds Xpress is recalling more than 450,000 blinds after a two-year-old Michigan girl was reportedly strangled in the loop of a vertical blind. The figure includes 139,000 custom-made vertical blinds and 315,000 horizontal blinds. The vertical blinds have an adjustment cord that creates a loop that isn’t attached to the wall or the floor and sometimes has a weight device at the bottom. The horizontal blinds do not have an inner cord-stop device to prevent the accessible inner cords from being pulled out, meaning children can become entangled and die. The blinds were sold from January 1995 until December 2011 in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. The girl died in 2009.
