Ryan Els lost his young life on September 30.<\/p>\n
The little boy\u2019s mother, Careen, said she received a phone call from the school that something was wrong with Ryan and that she must go to the hospital.
\nUpon arrival, she and her husband Martin found the medical staff busy resuscitating little Ryan.<\/p>\n
Careen explained how, initially, they thought his heart had stopped, but after 37 minutes of resuscitation, the doctor told Careen and Martin that Ryan had died after choking.<\/p>\n
Ryan was born with cerebral palsy, his condition was severe and his mother described him as a \u2018soft little baby\u2019.
\nHis condition restricted him to a wheelchair and he needed hands-on care.<\/p>\n
Autopsy reports showed that Ryan died of asphyxiation, this was likely caused by him choking on his vomit in his sleep.<\/p>\n
Careen explained that she and her husband were devastated by Ryan\u2019s sudden passing, \u201cHe was always a very happy child. Ryan enjoyed Snotkop\u2019s music and would always go crazy when he heard it on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n
After learning of the cause of death, the couple were disturbed.<\/p>\n
She explained that they do not want to point any fingers, but the autopsy results have brought so many unanswered questions to the surface.<\/p>\n
What they are grappling to understand is how nobody heard Ryan choking, \u201cThe doctors told us that it was impossible for no one not to hear Ryan gagging before he lost consciousness.\u201d
\nRyan was laid to rest last Monday.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Clever Kidz principal Susan du Plessis said she and other staff members were shocked at Ryan\u2019s death. She said that because of Ryan\u2019s condition, on several occasions Ryan had stopped breathing for at least five seconds.<\/p>\n
On September 30 he stopped breathing and the school rushed him to the hospital.<\/p>\n
Ms Du Plessis said one of the staff members who had first aid training also did CPR in the car while they were driving to the hospital.<\/p>\n
She was shocked when she heard that the post-mortem states that he died of asphyxiation, because of his condition he had a problem swallowing and Ms Du Plessis said they always kept him in their arms after he ate something.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all loved Ryan, we are going to miss him dearly,\u201d said Ms Du Plessis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Middelburg Police opened an inquest docket after the death of a three-year-old at Clever Kidz, a school for special needs children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8164,"featured_media":103616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Tiisetso Malunga","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[21473,10010,12898,21471,21470,21469,21472,10333],"class_list":["post-103615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","tag-investigation-into-toddlers-sudden-death-at-preschool","tag-local-news","tag-middelburg-news","tag-ryan-elz","tag-three-year-olds-death-at-preschool-under-investigation","tag-three-year-old-dies-at-preschool","tag-toddler-with-cerebral-palsy-dies-at-preschool","tag-trusted-news"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"tag_labels":["investigation into toddlers sudden death at preschool","local news","middelburg news","Ryan Elz","three year old's death at preschool under investigation","three-year-old dies at preschool","toddler with cerebral palsy dies at preschool","trusted news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}