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Shortly before 1am on an ordinary weekday in March 2020, Rashelle Jobson's eldest daughter came into her room crying.
As Rashelle walked four-year-old Sienna back to the room her two girls shared, she stopped short as she entered the bedroom.
She could see her 20-month-old daughter Lilliana lying face down on the bed.
"Something in me just knew straight away," Rashelle said.
"I stood there for probably a couple of seconds and just watched to see if I could see her breathing. And then I rolled her over and [I knew] just by her face … her mouth was open and her eyes were half open.
"I just knew she was gone, she'd passed away.
"I picked her up and ran to my partner at the time, and he started CPR on her while I called the ambulance."
Ambulance records show the triple-0 call came through at 12:56am, and just 17 minutes later at 1:13am, Lilliana was wheeled into Caboolture Hospital, north of Brisbane.
But Lilly's heart wouldn't restart, and by 1:27am the doctors pronounced her dead.
Her airway had been clear, but an autopsy report would later reveal that food was present deep in her lungs.
She had been choking on her vomit.
Childcare provider said Lilly was fine, according to Rashelle
Less than 24 hours earlier, March 17, 2020 had been an ordinary day for Rashelle Jobson's family.
She had dropped both girls at their childcare centre in the morning before heading to university. By the afternoon of that Tuesday, Rashelle was at work at about 3pm when she got a call from an educator at her daughter's childcare centre.
"They said that she had been pushed from the top of a slide by another kid and that her feet had kind of gone out from underneath her and she'd hit her head," she told 7.30.
"My initial response was, 'Do I need to come and get her? Like, is she OK? I can come and get her if you think it's serious.'
"And they just brushed it off and were just like, 'No, she's not crying anymore. She seems OK, she seems fine to us.' So I trusted their judgement. I wasn't there to see how bad the fall or head knock had been," Rashelle said.
The girl's grandmother picked the sisters up from child care, as arranged, just after 5pm.
Rashelle finished her late shift about 8pm and picked her daughters up. They had had their baths and eaten dinner.
"Sienna and Lilly were both still awake, but they were quite obviously tired because it had been a long day. They fell asleep in the car on the way home and I put them both to bed like I normally did. I went and did some uni work till around 10 and then I took myself to bed," Rashelle said.
Before the day ended, Rashelle's then-partner arrived home and also went to bed.
Then it turned into the early hours of March 18, and their lives changed forever.
Rashelle's became a blur.
"I carried her doll around for ages ... I was very much in shock, I couldn't really sleep," Rashelle said.
"And when I did, I had to have Sienna sleeping with me. We slept on an air mattress at my mum's house for like two weeks because I just couldn't go home.
"It was all just a blur, honestly. You know, going into funeral homes and having to organise a funeral for a 20-month-old."
Cause of death 'undetermined', report states
In the aftermath of Lilliana's death, an autopsy was performed by state forensic pathologist Nadine Forde, who sent her report to the Queensland coroner.
Dr Forde's report sheds light on the circumstances of Lilliana's death with one vital exception – her cause of death was listed as "undetermined".
Lilly's body was noted to be that of a well-nourished, normal toddler, but an internal examination showed a visible, "relatively large" area of injury to her head.
The injury was at the top of Lilly's head, not the back, as the centre had recorded.
It is not mandatory for centres to have CCTV, and none captured the playground at Lilly's child care.
"The findings indicate this child sustained a recent head injury which may be a result of the daycare fall or some other similar blunt force injury, given that the injury was to the top of her head, rather than the back," the autopsy report reads.
"It is possible that this injury may have resulted in concussion. The symptoms of concussion can include reduced level of consciousness, dizziness and vomiting."
The autopsy report also suggested that a recent respiratory illness could have caused a bout of coughing that led to vomiting and aspiration, but this was thought unlikely because "the illness is not considered to be of a severity that it would, on its own, account for death".
There was a third possibility, according to Dr Forde.
Three months before Lilly died, she'd smacked her head on concrete while playing with her sister.
The autopsy report said that two days after that accident, Lilly had "a large vomiting episode [prior to] suddenly becoming floppy and unresponsive, with the episode lasting approximately 30 minutes".
Rashelle had taken her to Caboolture Hospital where she was thoroughly screened, and a deliberately inflicted injury was ruled out.
She was discharged shortly afterwards with the diagnosis "vasovagal as cause" — meaning her heart rate had dropped and she'd fainted.
Dr Forde concluded in the autopsy report that "while aspiration from vomiting in the context of a recent head injury and possible concussion could explain [Lilliana's] death, the recent episode of altered consciousness in December raises other possibilities such as an undiagnosed seizure disorder or cardiac conduction abnormality, both of which are conditions which may not be detected at autopsy. As such, the cause of death is not determined".
In a statement, the childcare centre told 7.30 it had fully cooperated with the investigations done at the time.
Four years later, Rashelle still wonders whether the fall at the childcare centre contributed to Lilly's death.
"For me, it all boiled down to that head knock, you know. She was otherwise healthy," Rashelle said.
"They kept coming up with this suggestion that maybe she had a seizure disorder, even though we'd never seen any indication of any type of seizure before.
"It does state in the coroner's report that it was a result of blunt force trauma. And that [for me], you know says, was she pushed down a slide or was she hit in the head by a kid with a toy? It just … it doesn't add up and it doesn't make sense."
'No evidence her injury required further action'
State and territory education departments regulate childcare centres across Australia. Rashelle said she was never informed by Education Queensland that it had investigated her child's death.
The department told 7.30 its investigation did not identify breaches of the national regulations relating to supervision or first-aid policies.
"The first aid applied was reasonable in the circumstances and there was no evidence that Lilliana's symptoms or the circumstance of her injury required further action," the spokesperson said.
The Education Department said it was up to childcare providers to ensure their policies and procedures were appropriate, and that included "how to respond to head injuries sustained by children at the service".
Rashelle wants it to become mandatory for children who suffer a head injury at child care to be assessed by a doctor.
"Because they [the childcare centre] had assured me, I felt reassured by their words that she was fine, nothing was wrong, it wasn't that big of a head knock, so I was like, 'It's OK,'" she said.
"But at the end of the day, they weren't qualified to make that judgement."
Brisbane coroner Christine Clements reviewed the autopsy report, and a year afterwards wrote to Rashelle advising her she had decided not to hold a public inquest.
"There does not appear to be any prospect of making recommendations that would reduce the likelihood of similar deaths occurring in future, or otherwise contribute to public health and safety," Ms Clements said.
When contacted by 7.30, a court spokesperson said if the family were dissatisfied with the findings, they could apply to the state coroner to reopen the case.
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