Mothers are accustomed to doing a number of things with their kids in tow, like cooking dinner while toddlers sit nearby.
One of these typical multi-tasking moments turned petrifying for an Australian mom of two, Bec Crombie. Bec blogged about how she “almost killed [her] daughter” that day:
It was like any other regular afternoon of ours, which includes me in the kitchen prepping dinner with Nylah playing with cups and pots at my feet. I had peeled and chopped the potatoes, placing them in the pot and the knife back on the board, when I took one step to the left to remove the husk from the corn. As quickly as I had briefly stepped away, Nylah had stood up and grabbed the board from the bench. Which resulted in a 20-cm knife falling and narrowly missing stabbing her in the face.
Thankfully, Nylah “wasn’t even left with a scratch.” Still, Bec was left in tears, thinking about what could have happened. Up until that day, her daughter had never tried to grab the bench, Bev said, “It shocked me that she could even reach.”
Instead of keeping the nearly fatal accident a secret, she felt she needed to share her story and plead with other parents to remain especially vigilant in not just the bathtub, pools, and parking lots (the obvious places) but also in the kitchen.
“I’ve copped so much sh*t in the past for being a helicopter parent, or one that is overly cautious,” she wrote. “Truth is, it can happen to you. They are labeled ‘accidents’ for a reason. They are purely accidental, freak occurrences. Children are determined, inquisitive, and lightning-speed escape artists. Children are so quick, and we can really never be too careful.”