A mother is warning other parents after she found her toddler hanging from a blind cord.

Karen Shelley, of Victoria Street, Sheerness, said it was a miracle Riley came away from the incident with just a few bruises.

She found the two-year-old hanging in the window of her living room.

The 42-year-old said: “He was sitting on the window sill as I went out into the kitchen.

“I was only out there a little while when I noticed he had stood up.

“I told him to get down as it was dangerous, but as he went to step down on to the settee he grabbed the blind cord that was hanging down behind the curtain.

“He had hold of the cord on both sides of the loop and as he jumped down it went round his neck and pulled him back up a little – then he was just hanging there, limp.”

Miss Shelley’s legs gave way.

She added: “I tried to crawl to him as fast as I could but my 16-year-old daughter Samantha ran straight past me and grabbed him.

“She lifted his weight off the cord and, by that point, I had managed to get over there and remove the cord from around his neck. It was literally a few seconds but the colour went out of his face immediately and his eyes were bulging.

“It’s just something you never want to see – your child just hanging there lifeless.

“It was awful. I honestly thought he had died.

“The doctor said Riley had been extremely lucky and that if it had been a couple of inches lower and the cord had hit his windpipe it could have been a lot worse. It doesn’t even bear thinking about.”

The mother-of-four wants to warn other parents.

She said: “If something like this could happen while he was being supervised, it’s scary to think of what could happen to a child when they’re in their bedrooms or playing alone.

“I have read about these kinds of tragic incidents before and I’ve made sure there is no cord in his bedroom. I usually wrap the cord in the living room around the actual pole too, but I just hadn’t done it that day.

“I just want to warn others of the dangers and make sure they cut the cords or make sure they are tied up high at least.”

Miss Shelley has now cut the cord off the blind in her living room.