Parents issue warning after son, 8, tragically dies from inhaling helium balloon when he was left alone
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: ITV
Jamie and Carly Dunbar have spoken out after their young son, Joshua, sadly passed away after inhaling a helium balloon on his birthday.
It’s something a lot of people do when they purchase a helium balloon: bite a little hole by the knot, and gulp down a large mouthful of gas to make your friends laugh at the way it changes your voice.
However, more and more, reports are being made of fatal instances happening to those who are curious about helium and its high-pitched voice effect.
Sadly, one of those cases happened just recently, to little 8-year-old Joshua.
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According to his distraught parents, he was only alone with a helium balloon for ‘minutes’ before he was discovered ‘lifeless’ in his bedroom in the UK.
On May 20, Jamie and Carly appeared on This Morning to warn of the dangers a helium balloon can have.
They explained that they had purchased a foil balloon shaped like the number eight, to honor his birthday.
Then, when they got home, they said Joshua needed time for himself, and so he took the balloon to his room.
However, between Joshua going upstairs, his mom following for a ‘chat’, and then his dad entering moments later, a nightmare unfolded.
“He wanted some quiet time in his room cause he liked quiet time, didn’t he? So he went up to his room,” Jamie explained, with Carly adding: “He took the balloon up to his room with him.”
She explained that she talked to her son and recalled him sitting on his bed with the balloon and calmly watching TV.
"I told him his dad would be up, and we’re going to put all his presents away. And then his dad came up literally minutes later,” Carly shared on the show.
“And then [I came] up and found him. At first, I’d seen the balloon half deflated," Jamie said. "It took me a split second to realize Joshua was lying down with the balloon over his head. So I had to get him off his bed and physically rip the balloon off him."
“We don’t know exactly how the balloon has managed to get over his head,” Carly revealed, ‘but from the manner where he was sitting in his room, he was nice and calm.’
She theorized that Joshua must have ‘bit it’ open, and this is what led to the helium being inhaled and replacing his oxygen in his lungs.
“And then knocked him deeply unconscious, which then allowed the foil balloon to cover his head," she added.
Carly also detailed the panic she felt after Joshua was discovered, revealing that she began to scream for the neighbors to help the couple.
Soon after, paramedics were on the scene and took over from Jamie to administer CPR.
However, sadly, Joshua couldn’t be revived.
Now, the couple are raising awareness of the dangers of helium balloons, stating: “But we just want to get it out there, the message, the awareness, even if that doesn’t happen, to make people aware that the dangers of them. Because we never knew. We’d always bought balloons for our other children’s birthdays before."