Toddler dies after choking on grape week before his third birthday

Medics tried to resuscitate the boy for an hour after he suffered cardiorespiratory arrest

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A two-year-old boy has died after choking on a grape in France, according to local reports.

The boy, who was due to celebrate his third birthday on April 15, passed away on Monday evening after suffering a cardiorespiratory arrest while suffocating on the grape in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), the Nanterre prosecutor's office told French media.

His parents called the emergency services to report that their child had swallowed a grape - but when they arrived, they found the boy in cardiorespiratory arrest.

Attempts to resuscitate the boy by emergency services lasted more than an hour, before he died at around 9.30pm in his parents’ home.

Authorities have now opened an investigation into the cause of death and ordered an autopsy, Marion Chalaux, deputy prosecutor in charge of the general secretariat of Nanterre’s public prosecutor's office, told Le Figaro. An autopsy is due to take place in due course.

According to Le Parisien, a little boy died in March after swallowing a piece of banana in a nursery in Plessis-Robinson. Earlier in March, a girl, just two years old, choked on a piece of meat while with her childminder in Élancourt (Yvelines).

In February, a 10-year-old boy in Malaysia died after choking on an eyeball-shaped gummy, his family said. Mohamad Fahmi Hafiz, a fourth grader, was admitted to the intensive care unit of a local hospital after he collapsed at his school in Penang state on the northwest coast of peninsular Malaysia.

His aunt, Siti Farhani Mohamad Fikri, said in a Facebook post that her nephew had purchased the candy from a shop near the school and choked on it shortly after consuming it, The Straits Times reported.