'My son died after inhaling a helium balloon and the screams will never leave me'

Carly Dunbar’s son Joshua sadly died on his eighth birthday in what has been called ‘the most tragic of accidents’. The young boy was found unresponsive in his room with a number 8-shaped balloon over his head on April 27, 2024.

After he was rushed to the hospital, a post-mortem examination concluded that Joshua’s death was “consistent with asphyxia involving a helium balloon”.

Opening up about the horrifying incident, Carly and husband Jamie appeared on Tuesday’s (May 20) episode of This Morning.

Describing the moments before the incident, Carly told hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard: ”He (Joshua) went upstairs and took the balloon with him. I came up after him and went and had a little chat with him, he was just sat up on his bed with the balloon, watching the TV – nice and calm.”

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Viably moved, she continued: “I told him his dad (Jamie’s dad) would be up and going to put all his presents away. And then his dad came up, literally minutes later…”

Jamie jumped in: “I said bye to my dad at night and then came up and found him. At first, I’d seen the balloon, half-deflated.

“It took me a split second to realise Joshua was lying down with the balloon over his head, so I had to get him off his bed and physically ripped the balloon off him.”

Carly was choked up as she said: “The pain is still as raw as the minute I heard Jamie scream, when he found him. I just, you know, when you have that feeling as her parents and I just feel like that scream.. That will never leave me.”

She continued: “I’d run in the bedroom, and I’d just seen Joshua quite, well, lifeless. I’ve just panicked and run outside screaming at the neighbours for help.

“So the ambulance paramedics came in and worked on Joshua in the house. Then the air ambulance came.. But he was so poorly he had to go by the fastest route.”

“So it was like a big rush of all doctors and nurses, and they were all around his bed trying to do CPR, and I’m trying to bring him back. They were amazing, they tried their best, but we just had to say goodbye to him.”

Carly and Jamie are now launching a campaign to try to prohibit the sale of helium balloons. Jamie explained: “We want to get it out there. The message, the awareness.