A young boy was accidentally strangled to death with a cord as he went down a slide at a playground, an inquest heard.
Aldrich Viju was found unresponsive by a teacher following the incident at Angels Childcare Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, on November 18, 2016.
The inquest heard how a classmate told a nearby childcare worker that "Aldrich was sleeping and wasn't waking up."
Teachers then spotted the boy lying dead at the bottom of the slide, an inquest at Auckland District Court heard on Tuesday.
The four-year-old had been playing with a toy stilt that had a cord attached to it and had become entangled around his neck.
When help arrived Aldrich was found at the bottom of the slide with the stilt still around his neck, Stuff reports.
Jiae Kwon, the teacher who found the four-year-old, immediately performed CPR on Alrich who was no longer breathing.
Paramedics attempted to save the boy but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
"The rope was tangled on top of the slide... and it caught the arm of Aldrich,'"she said.
The manager of the centre, Karen Douglas, said the centre has banned anything that could strangle a child on play equipment.
Fletcher Pilditch, the lawyer for the childcare centre, said staff had still not come to terms with the tragedy four years later.
"To this day the tragedy is unfathomable. For them, they still struggle to see how this very brief event wasn't seen straight away," he said.
"This was indeed a tragic accident."
