Baby Jayden was sleeping in the living room while his mother, Tracey Harris, did the dishes in the kitchen when Tuesday's magnitude 6.3 quake struck Christchurch.
Ms Harris was thrown to the ground and when she managed to get to the living room she couldn't see her baby anywhere -- but
she could see the heavy television which had crashed to the floor, The Press reported.
She found Jayden under it, floppy, with shallow breathing and a faint heartbeat. She borrowed a car to try to get him to hospital, finding a nurse on the way who performed CPR on the side of the road.
The nurse, a doctor and a policeman kept trying to save the wee boy as a ute was found to get him to hospital but he could not be revived.
``They tried everything they could but there was nothing they could do. I think he had pretty much died on impact,'' Ms Harris told the newspaper.
She cuddled her son for the next eight hours before he was taken to the morgue, and is doing her best to remember all the joy her exuberant, friendly baby brought her, rather than his tragic death.
``Every bit of time I have with him, even though it was only eight months, has given me nothing but happiness,'' she said.
Ms Harris has two daughters, who live with their father, but finds it hard to be with them as they look so like their dead brother, all sharing ``the most stunning blue eyes''.
