Toddler's death adds to push for foam ban

The death of a girl nine days before her third birthday has prompted a coroner to step up pressure on the Government to ban a type of inflammable foam.

Yeung Yee-ching left hand prints on the window of her bedroom when she tried to escape poisonous fumes coming from her burning pillow and a blanket on October 14 last year.

Returning a verdict of death by misadventure, Coroner Paul Kelly demanded progress reports from various government departments on proposed changes to rules covering the use of polyurethane foam (PU foam).

Referring to an inquest in May on a blaze at a Mei Foo Sun Chuen Estate where the deaths of nine people were blamed by a coroner partly on the inflammable material, he said: 'The dangers of PU foam in furniture are well known. It is a matter of urgency to have all PU foam-filled furniture withdrawn from the market.' A spokesman for the Trade and Industry Bureau said last night that all PU-stuffed furniture was legal as long as it met general safety requirements.

She said a balance had to be sought between consumer choice and public safety.

The plastic foam is banned in Britain and the United States.

Yee-ching set her mattress, blankets and pillows on fire while playing with a lighter, resulting in toxic fumes filling the bedroom, coroner's officer Evelyn Tsang Yeuk-hang said.

One of her blankets and a pillow were made of the material, capable of emitting cyanide during combustion, according to forensic pathologist Dr Hau Kong-lung.

'It takes a matter of minutes for a person to be overcome by noxious smoke,' Dr Hau said.

The carbon monoxide level in the girl's blood, which might not be fatal in itself, had been exacerbated by the cyanide, he said.

The child left her hand prints when she tried to open the window of her Tuen Mun home before dying of inhaling cyanide and carbon monoxide, the Coroner's Court found.

The toddler was left to take an afternoon nap while her grandmother went out to chat with neighbours, the child's uncle, Yeung Chi-chung, 18, said.

Mr Kelly said: 'The decision to leave Yee-ching alone that afternoon is fateful, and it does not need the court today to say her grandmother regretted it very much.'