Cops are investigating after a two-year-old boy froze to death when he woke up in the night and managed to go outside in minus 10 degrees Celsius dressed just in his pyjamas.
He had managed to climb out of his cot and then go outside to look for his parents after a baby phone had apparently failed to alert the parents that he was awake.
The mum and dad of the little boy named Simon had gone to visit friends in the small village of Vorderweissenbach in the Austrian state of Upper Austria, leaving the boy sleeping in his cot.
Police who are investigating say that temperatures fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius in the area when the tragedy happened.
When the parents aged 28 and 31 returned home from visiting neighbours just a hundred metres (328 feet) away, they did not immediately check on the youngster.
They only checked on him at 5am, when they were shocked to find that he was missing.
The parents apparently relied on the baby phone to let them know if the boy had woken up, and they had not noticed any problems.
(Newsflash)
After finding he was missing, they then launched a panicked search and discovered the youngster unconscious only a few metres away from the property.
He was suffering from severe hypothermia and died despite the intervention of rescue workers.
His devastated parents are being treated for shock and are also being investigated by police to see whether they will have to face charges over the death.
Local mayor Leopold Gartner, who said he had visited the devastated parents, added that he had done everything he could to comfort them, but at the moment they are inconsolable.
The mother is already pregnant with their second child and is expecting the baby in March.
The parents said that the little boy had never before managed to climb out of the bed and they had no reason to imagine that he would do that when they decided to briefly go to the neighbours’.
It is believed that the boy woke up at around 10pm and it is unclear why the baby phone did not alert the parents.
It is also unclear how he managed to open the door and get outside in his pyjamas, where he froze to death in front of the garage at a neighbour’s house.
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Story By: James King, Sub-Editor: William McGee, Agency: Newsflash
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