A mum has issued a warning to other parents after fearing she had strangled her toddler in the middle of the night.
Parents Madi Jones and partner Dylan Smith, both 23, were horrified when they woke to find their 21-month-old son, Isaac was struggling to breathe.
The toddler had rolled over in his sleep and somehow become tangled in Madi's hair, which was wrapped around his throat.
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In order to save their son's life, Dylan ripped Madi's hair from her head to free the little boy.
"My heart literally felt like it fell out of my body, my mind was racing I was in so much panic and shock and was frozen with fear," says Madi, from Victoria, Australia.
"If I moved it would pull the hair tighter and put Isaac at more risk or I could try to assist Dylan and try to get him free. I honestly couldn't keep up with my own thoughts."
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Now, the parents want to warn others to be super vigilant while co-sleeping.
"Isaac has co-slept with us since he was about six-months old," says Dylan. "About 4am I woke up to him crying and didn't think much of it and I looked at him and saw Madi's hair wrapped around his neck.
"He always sleeps as close as he can get to his mum as possible. He must've kept rolling around and rolled the hair around his neck.
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"I started panicking and Madi woke up. I was trying to pull her hair out and he was crying. Madi said get the scissors then when I was getting up he stopped crying and stopped breathing."
Desperately trying to free their son, Dylan immediately ripped out Madi's hair.
"So I just had to yank the hair off and as soon as it was off his neck he started crying again. There was about ten seconds where he wasn't breathing," he continues.
"When he stopped breathing, I thought he was dead. I could see in his face he wasn't breathing.
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"When I made that last rip of Madi's hair and heard him cry, it was just a big sigh of relief. After that he cried for about five minutes and there were no marks around his neck."
The following morning, Madi found marks on Isaac's neck as well as broken blood vessels on his face.
The mum rushed him to hospital where his injuries were treated. While he was admitted for two days, Isaac has now made a full recovery.
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"We don't co-sleep anymore, we just get him to sleep in his own room," says Dylan.
"We'd say to other parents push through the hard stage and don't co-sleep, you might not be as lucky as us."
Madi adds: "I count my lucky stars every day since that night. Someone was really looking down on us that night."
We're so glad little Isaac is okay.
Lucy Devine