Toddler suffocates under day care's beanbag chair

Leonardo Sanchez would have turned 2 on Saturday, but instead of a birthday party, his parents are holding his funeral. In what police are calling a “very tragic, sad accident,” the boy was playing with other children at West Jordan Child Center in the Salt Lake City suburb Thursday when he crawled under a beanbag chair, which an employee then sat on to read to other kids.

Employees found Leonardo unconscious 10 to 15 minutes later, per the Salt Lake Tribune. He was given CPR before being rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police say he suffocated. “I’m so confused on how you don’t know where my kid is,” the boy’s mother tells KSL. “How do you not feel him? How do you not hear him scream?” “I dropped him off at day care not realizing I would never be able to hold him again,” Danielle Sanchez adds, per KUTV.

“Somebody dropped the ball and now we’re going to have to bury a boy because of that.” In a statement, the day care says “we regret deeply the tragic death of a young toddler at our day care facility … We know the family well, we grieve with them, and we pray that God will provide them the comfort and peace they inevitably will need.” A rep for the Utah Office of Children’s Licensing says the day care was cited twice in five years for a lack of supervision on its patio and for a hole in a fence through which a child could have escaped, reports Fox 13.

An investigation is underway. (A baby girl died on her first day at day care.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Toddler Dies Pinned Under Day Care’s Beanbag Chair