Brit baby boy fighting for his life in Thailand after almost drowning in a bath when he was left with a nanny

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CRITICAL CONDITION

Brit baby boy fighting for his life in Thailand after almost drowning in a bath when he was left with a nanny

Jon Lockett

 

Eleven-month-old York Skirrow was rushed to hospital and is now in a critical conditionCredit: Triangle News

 

A BRIT baby is fighting for his life in hospital after almost drowning in just three centimetres of bath water when left alone by his nanny.

 

Eleven-month-old York Skirrow stopped breathing and his heart then stopped beating for 18 minutes after his ordeal at his home in Thailand.

 

His ex-pat parents Nick and Jana Skirrow, 36 and 34, were out teaching while their nanny was looking after York in their house in Bangkok.

 

Nick, originally from Leeds, West Yorks said: “I don’t know the ins and outs but it seems York needed washing off.

 

York's parents Nick and Jana Skirrow were away from the home teaching at the timeCredit: Triangle News

 

“He had a bath and the nanny had drained the water out. “She got worried that the stove was still on and that Rex - York’s two-year-old brother - could be there so she went to check.

 

“No one can know for sure but our thought is he stepped on the plug and turned the tap on.

 

Full story: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10424418/brit-baby-boy-nearly-drowned-thailand/#

 

-- The SUN 2019-11-27

 

 

 

 

[leeneeds]

My best wishes for York.

[roo860]

Tragic. 

[MaxLee]

SH****t Nanny

[hotchilli]

Sounds like a tragic accident, a moments loss of concentration and the result is as we read.

If she was bathing the baby then really the 2 year old toddler should have been taken into the bathroom at the same time so as they could be both monitored at the same time, as for something possibly left unattended on the kitchen stove then that was negligence.

Multi-tasking with young kids is a recipe for disaster.. kids are the priority.

But if you're honest enough to say it every parent alive has done it at some point... most get away with it!

I sincerely hope he recovers with no lasting issues.

[pixelaoffy]

I would NEVER leave a baby that needs constant attention with a Thai Nanny. I'm not even going to say why because western folk who've lived in Thailand a long time  should know why.

[mikebell]

Thai work ethic?  Check her mobile phone data for what she was doing whilst the baby was in the bath.

[Bangkok Barry]

 

I might be talking like a dinosaur, but wasn't it better in the old days when mothers actually took care of their own children? Being a mother is not a part-time job to be done along with something else. Of course, Thailand itself is a world-beater in palming off their kids to someone else to look after.

[RotBenz8888]

Would under no circumstances trust a nanny in Thailand. It's like putting your kids in a minivan.

Edited November 27, 2019 by RotBenz8888

[Xaos]

I dont buy her story

[richard_smith237]

Another story is that while the baby was in the bath the other boy needed to poop so the nanny attended to him. 

Upon returning to the baby in the bath the tragedy had already unfolded. 

 

Negligence - absolutely, there is no other way to look at this. 

 

We have had Nannies (nanny and maid) for our child but we never trusted them 100% with out child and set some firm rules: We bathed our infant son ourselves (when he was very young), our son could only be fed in our presence (risk of choking, we'd know how to deal with it). 

The Child was not allowed on the balcony (windows and balconies remained locked at all times), nanny was not allowed to take child on to the Balcony. 

Child was never allowed in the kitchen etc.

 

Still, with all that nothing is ever perfect and tragic mistakes can happen. You can be as safe as you want but somethings can just happen, in most cases 'we' get away with it. 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

This also highlights the need not just for adequate insurance, but very good insurance. 

 

The Insurance the couple had reached its limit (about 1MB) very quickly).

 

Tragically, so many people think they are fully covered when under extremely serious circumstances the ceiling / limit can be easily reached. 

 

The level of cover I have for my Son is up to THB 32,000,000 (32 million) baht in a calendar year, that seems a lot, but its just 32 weeks cover for this poor little lad.

 

 

[donnacha]

The story about the stove is probably nonsense, the nanny was almost certainly engrossed in her phone.

I once had the wild notion that I could insist that Thai workers leave their phones in a locker while on duty but it has become clear that they will not turn up the next day if they cannot remain permanently attached to their virtual existence. They all say they want a job but this is, apparently, a deal-breaker.

[metempsychotic]

2 hours ago, pixelaoffy said:

I would NEVER leave a baby that needs constant attention with a Thai Nanny. I'm not even going to say why because western folk who've lived in Thailand a long time  should know why.

One helped me raise my daughter now 13.

 

A more caring loving person could not be found. 

[emptypockets]

If his heart had stopped beating for 18 minutes he had no chance to be revived. As it is he has a very good chance of irrervsible brain damage. A friend of mine went through a similar experience with a backyard pool. Her son was never the same again. The parents should seriously consider going home as I doubt they will be able to survive financially in the long term.

Edited November 27, 2019 by emptypockets

[emptypockets]

30 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Another story is that while the baby was in the bath the other boy needed to poop so the nanny attended to him. 

Upon returning to the baby in the bath the tragedy had already unfolded. 

 

Negligence - absolutely, there is no other way to look at this. 

 

We have had Nannies (nanny and maid) for our child but we never trusted them 100% with out child and set some firm rules: We bathed our infant son ourselves (when he was very young), our son could only be fed in our presence (risk of choking, we'd know how to deal with it). 

The Child was not allowed on the balcony (windows and balconies remained locked at all times), nanny was not allowed to take child on to the Balcony. 

Child was never allowed in the kitchen etc.

 

Still, with all that nothing is ever perfect and tragic mistakes can happen. You can be as safe as you want but somethings can just happen, in most cases 'we' get away with it. 

 

 

Why didn't you just feed the kid yourself? Why watch the hired help to do it?

[pkspeaker]

All this Thai nanny bashing.. this could happen to anyone, even the boys parents are not blaiming the nanny.. Kids will do things like this, they see you plug the drain and turn on the water when the bath was started..  you drain the water and the kid is in the tub, everything looks ok and now you get distracted by the other one, the frst one then plugs the drain, turns on the water, slips and falls down, just for a few minutes-you return in just a few minutes the child has stopped breathing.. nanny screams for help but it takes at least 10 minutes to get the baby breathing again..

this could happen with the childs parents just as likly.. taking care of small children in a modern home that's filled with hazards , you cannot get lucky everytime..

my mom almost lost one of my siblings when we were babies because she turned away for like 3 minutes.. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by pkspeaker

[NanLaew]

3 hours ago, pixelaoffy said:

I would NEVER leave a baby that needs constant attention with a Thai Nanny. I'm not even going to say why because western folk who've lived in Thailand a long time  should know why.

Based on your opinion, I consider myself very lucky that both my lads have successfully dodged the evil Thai nanny bullet? Should I buy a lottery ticket? Two maybe?

[NanLaew]

48 minutes ago, donnacha said:

The story about the stove is probably nonsense, the nanny was almost certainly engrossed in her phone.

I once had the wild notion that I could insist that Thai workers leave their phones in a locker while on duty but it has become clear that they will not turn up the next day if they cannot remain permanently attached to their virtual existence. They all say they want a job but this is, apparently, a deal-breaker.

I was in a Thai-owned business; a very busy branch of Mityon (motorbikes) where the staff were not allowed to access their phones while on-shift. There was an area at the back of the sales department desks where the phones were kept in named pigeonholes and another one in the mechanics area. Maybe your staff just didn't like you?

[billd766]

53 minutes ago, donnacha said:

The story about the stove is probably nonsense, the nanny was almost certainly engrossed in her phone.

I once had the wild notion that I could insist that Thai workers leave their phones in a locker while on duty but it has become clear that they will not turn up the next day if they cannot remain permanently attached to their virtual existence. They all say they want a job but this is, apparently, a deal-breaker.

Unless you were there at the time, you have absolutely no way of knowing what happened.

[donnacha]

1 minute ago, NanLaew said:

I was in a Thai-owned business; a very busy branch of Mityon (motorbikes) where the staff were not allowed to access their phones while on-shift. There was an area at the back of the sales department desks where the phones were kept in named pigeonholes and another one in the mechanics area. Maybe your staff just didn't like you?

As ever, you never miss an opportunity to insult another member.

Your past experience, in an entirely different type of business, has no bearing on the current state of smartphone addiction among domestic workers in Thailand.

 

[metempsychotic]

personally my partner and i split amicably when my daughter was 3, i could not have raised her on my own without my nanny, who was a member of the family and allowed me to work without worrying about my childs well being. 

i paid her, but will be forever in her debt. 

[KKr]

3 hours ago, hotchilli said:

But if you're honest enough to say it every parent alive has done it at some point... most get away with it!

wise words,
(or those were just lucky )

[donnacha]

4 minutes ago, billd766 said:

Unless you were there at the time, you have absolutely no way of knowing what happened.

Yes, that is why I used the qualifying words "probably" and "almost certainly".

You may not have noticed but any forum discussing News stories contains posts by people who were not "there at the time". The whole purpose of such discussions is to speculate on the underlying causes. It would be a very quiet thread if the only participants were the ones who were there at the time: a Thai nanny and a baby.

My observation that many unsupervised Thai workers are distracted by their smartphone addiction, and my guess that this may have applied in this tragic case, are both valid.

[Ragnarok]

Sadly, York never regained consciousness and died yesterday evening, according to the gofundme page. I also heard the nanny was Burmese.

[DrTuner]

On 11/27/2019 at 11:57 AM, donnacha said:

The story about the stove is probably nonsense, the nanny was almost certainly engrossed in her phone.

I once had the wild notion that I could insist that Thai workers leave their phones in a locker while on duty but it has become clear that they will not turn up the next day if they cannot remain permanently attached to their virtual existence. They all say they want a job but this is, apparently, a deal-breaker.

Installing a signal scrambler that blocks wifi and mobile signals works. Should be mandatory at every workplace. Use wired LAN if internet is needed.

[spiekerjozef]

You can never blame any nanny, it's the parents who hired her. If you don't have enough time to take care of your child why would you have a child in the first place?

Doesn't mean this is a very tragic story...

Edited January 9, 2020 by spiekerjozef

[fruitman]

On 11/27/2019 at 9:08 AM, pixelaoffy said:

I would NEVER leave a baby that needs constant attention with a Thai Nanny. I'm not even going to say why because western folk who've lived in Thailand a long time  should know why.

And this is why they all bring their nasty babies and kids to restaurants where they can annoy other diners....

 

There are no good nannies in thailand or they can't afford them, even not the families with huge Benzes.

[geisha]

Mobile phones in work should be illegal. In case of emergency the person should call the reception, office , house phone. ( as far as this is possible of course).