Coroner's Finding: Hayes, Teegan Rose Dana
Deceased
Teegan Rose Hayes
Demographics
<1y, female
Date of death
2011-11-06
Finding date
2018-05-31
Cause of death
hypoxic brain injury following respiratory arrest due to accidental suffocation whilst co-sleeping
AI-generated summary
A 24-day-old infant died from hypoxic brain injury following accidental suffocation whilst co-sleeping with her intoxicated mother. The parents were known to child protection services (CPS) due to intellectual disabilities, severe parental alcohol abuse, poor supervision, and neglect. Fifteen notifications had been made before the infant's birth, but CPS failed to conduct proper risk assessments, apply cumulative harm frameworks, or take protective action. Critical deficits included incomplete risk documentation, failure to assess parental functioning, poor inter-agency communication, and inadequate investigation practices. Had CPS properly assessed prior notifications and understood cumulative harm, they would likely have been aware of the birth and removed the infant at that time, preventing her death.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Specialties
Error types
Drugs involved
Clinical conditions
Contributing factors
- co-sleeping with intoxicated parent
- parental alcohol abuse
- adult bedding and pillows in bed with infant
- parental intellectual disability
- parental lack of understanding of safe sleeping practices despite education
- failure of child protection services to assess and act on 15 prior notifications
- failure to identify cumulative harm to children
- inadequate risk assessment procedures
Coroner's recommendations
- CPS provide ongoing training to child safety officers in identifying and responding to situations where infants under 12 months are at risk due to unsafe sleeping practices
- Deputy Secretary, Child and Youth Services, provide this finding to the Chair of the working party for the Vulnerable Infants and Babies Strategy to inform development of the Tasmanian Strategic Framework for Vulnerable Infants and Babies
Full text
Related cases
Source and disclaimer
This page reproduces or summarises information from publicly available findings published by Australian coroners' courts. Coronial is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any coronial court or government body.
Content may be incomplete, reformatted, or summarised. All court orders for redaction and non-publication are respected; documents with technically defective redaction have been excluded from the database entirely. Always refer to the original court publication for the authoritative record.
Copyright in original materials remains with the relevant government jurisdiction. AI-generated summaries and tagging are for educational purposes only, may contain inaccuracies, and must not be treated as legal documents. We welcome feedback for correction —