‘I watched helplessly as my baby was crushed by a falling TV in our home’

A mum who watched helplessly as her worst nightmare unfolded before her eyes has spoken about the moment a TV fell on her baby.

Ten-month-old Harley was crushed and killed in the freak accident.

His mum was wracked by grief after the death, and ultimately lost her job and marriage too as she struggled to come to terms with her devastating loss.

Here, Natalie Bifulco tells her heartbreaking story….

I’d only turned my back for a second when I heard the almighty crash that changed my world forever.

It was June 2012 and I was busy getting ready for a day at the seaside with my 10-month-old baby boy, Harley, and my partner, Kelvin.

I was folding some of Harley’s clothes when I heard him say ‘Mam’ as he tried to pull himself up on a chest of drawers.

Before I knew what was happening, the drawers toppled and the giant TV on top crashed down onto my little boy with a sickening thud.

Adrenaline kicked in as I heaved it off him, and Kelvin leapt out of bed. I scooped Harley into my arms and he let out a scream and started whingeing.

Then his eyes closed, and he went floppy. An ambulance rushed us to hospital where a team of 30 doctors worked on Harley.

But before long, a doctor took me to one side. ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do,’ he said gently. I held my baby boy in my arms as he died.

There was barely a mark on him, it looked like he was sleeping. But he’d been crushed by the television and his little body couldn’t take the massive internal injuries.

‘A sign from Harley’

After Harley died, I broke down. I pushed everyone away, and Kelvin and I ended up splitting. For a long time, I didn’t see the point of carrying on without Harley.

But then I saw a spiritualist, who told me Harley wanted to be a big brother. ‘Congratulations, you’re pregnant,’ she told me. I thought it was a load of rubbish.

But it played on my mind, so two days later, in 2016, I took a test. It was positive. This is a sign from Harley, I thought.

Knowing I was carrying Harley’s little brother helped me turn my life around but when little Jace was born in March 2017, I started to get anxious.

‘We’ll honour his memory forever’

‘Is he alive?’ I asked doctors, the second he came into the world. Terrified something bad would happen to him too, I didn’t let Jace out of my sight.

I was convinced I was jinxed and something terrible would happen again. I even tried to stop him crawling in case he had an accident. ‘You’ve got to let him be a kid,’ Mum said gently one day.

And when Jace reached 10 months, the age Harley was when he died, I started to relax a little. His milestones have been bittersweet.

I’m glad he’s progressing, but I’m sad Harley never reached them.

Now two, I tell Jace all about his amazing big brother. I’ll never get over the day my baby was killed by the television but I believe Harley sent me Jace to help me through, and I’ll make sure we honour his memory forever.”