THE heartbroken parents of a baby boy who choked to death on pasta at nursery have been handed a six-figure settlement.
Oliver Steeper was fed the chopped up meal by staff at the Jelly Beans Day Nursery in Kent.
After choking and falling unconscious, the nine-month-old was rushed to hospital and later transferred to an intensive care unit.
Doctors discovered Oliver had food lodged in his lungs, which caused a catastrophic brain injury because of the lack of oxygen.
Tragically, the baby could not be saved and died six days after the horror in September 2021.
Oliver’s parents Zoe and Lewis Steeper said they had not begun to wean him on to solid food yet and that he was not ready for it.
Represented by the law firm Leigh Day, they have now settled a claim with the nursery for an undisclosed, six-figure number.
The Jelly Beans Day Nursery, which is now closed, reached the settlement without admitting liability.
The heartbroken parents said their legal efforts were “never about the money” but “accountability”.
Since Oliver’s death, Zoe and Lewis have fought for new new standards in first aid training for childcare professionals and founded a charity that provides anti-choking devices to nurseries across the UK.
An inquest into the tot’s death heard the “level of first aid provided by the nursery staff was overall of a poor standard”.
Coroner Katrina Hepburn wrote to the Government saying that the general standard at the time of having one first-aider per nursery could “pose a risk to future life”.
Ministers have since introduced reforms that include making sure there is always a staff member in the room with a valid paediatric first-aid certificate while children are eating.
Zoe said it was “surreal” and “bittersweet” to see these reforms, “because Oli had to die”.
She continued: “I feel like if it hadn’t been Oli, it would have been another child.
“We hear stories about children who are still dying from choking in childcare settings so I still think there is a long way to go but whenever we hear it, it is comforting to know that underneath it all is Oli.”
She described her son as a “very cheeky, cheerful” boy who “was happy all the time” and said the memory of the day of the choking is now “all one big blur“.
Oliver’s dad Lewis recalled how the day of the horror was “like a scene out of The Matrix where you’re frozen in time and all the doctors are doing 200mph all around you”.
He added: “Then this one lady stepped out of the cloud of people and said, ‘You need to prepare yourself, he’s not going to survive’, at which point our world just fell apart because we had hope all the way until that point.”
He continued: “We didn’t even get a decision to make, because the damage was so bad, because of the time he was without oxygen.”
The couple’s charity, the Oliver Steeper Foundation, now fundraises for the distribution of a device called a LifeVac, which can suck objects out of the throat of a child or adult if something gets stuck.
The couple said they have already used it on their second child after he began choking on Calpol.
Zoe said: “She continued: “Generally, we have been overawed by how many people have come out and supported us, especially with the way things are with the cost of living.
“That’s the biggest thing that has come out of all of this, the whole process has changed us as people.”
