Desperate for answers: Parents' horror as baby dies at childcare

Anet Eyvazians with her daughter Arianna. Photo / Facebook via news.com.au

"What happened?"

Those are the two words the devastated parents of a 16-month-old Australian girl who died at childcare last year are still desperate to know the answer to.

Western Sydney couple Jozef Maragol and Anet Eyvazians dropped their little girl Arianna Maragol at Berry Patch daycare at 9am on August 2018.

Throughout the morning Eyvazians was checking in on the Berry Patch app which allowed parents to see their children's days unfolding, including what time they ate, napped and played.

But by 12.05pm, the childcare centre called Maragol to say she was "not responding".

Anet Eyvazians and Jozef Maragol lost their daughter Arianna in August last year. Photo / Facebook via news.com.au

The pair raced to Westmead Children's Hospital but when they arrived their daughter was pronounced dead.

"We couldn't believe that we were going to see our lifeless child on a bed," Eyvazians told ABC's 7.30.

"How could this happen? I just called not long ago to check on her and they said to me 'She's fine'.

"I couldn't even believe that. And it didn't make sense for us. And we couldn't believe that. It's Arianna."

Other than a slight temperature that morning, which had led Eyvazians to give the tot some Panadol, the parents described Arianna's morning as "normal".

"She danced, she clapped in the car. There was nothing unusual. Even when we got to the childcare centre, she was the same baby as every day," Maragol told the show.

At 8:32pm on the day Arianna died, Berry Patch put out a statement attributing her death to a "medical episode", ABC states.

Confused, the distraught parents hoped the autopsy would provide some answers — but say the inconclusive findings that left her cause of death "unascertained" only left them with more questions.

The log of the checks undertaken on Arianna on August 24, revealed through Berry Patch's lawyer, showed she had been looked at irregularly.

Jozef Maragol and Anet Eyvazians, who wear butterfly brooches in memory of Arianna, told ABC's 7.30 show they're still searching for answers. Photo / ABC

Childcare standards set by the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority state that staff should "always be within sight and hearing distance of sleeping and resting children so that they can assess a child's breathing and the colour of their skin".

Berry Patch's own internal policy states every child is to be checked on every 10 minutes.

Arianna, however, had been checked over irregular periods of time, with the longest gap totalling 30 minutes.

The couple have since welcomed a healthy six-month-old boy named Samuel, but say they're "shattered" at not knowing exactly what happened to Arianna, describing their pain as wearing a "mask" every day.

"Arianna was our first child. She was such a beautiful, happy, smart and caring little girl," Eyvazians said.

Every day the pair wear butterfly brooches in memory of Arianna, saying "we carry her always with us in our heart".

The childcare centre declined to answer questions about what happened on August 24 when asked for an interview by 7.30.

News.com.au has also contacted them for comment.

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