Death of toddler after 166kg mirror falls on her in Jewel Changi Airport a ‘tragic misadventure’: Coroner

SINGAPORE — An 18-month-old toddler died last year in Jewel Changi Airport when her six-year-old brother and another child squeezed behind a 166kg free-standing mirror in a clothing store, leading to the mirror toppling on her. 

Lai Jiaxin’s death was ruled a “tragic misadventure” by State Coroner Kamala Ponnampalam, who added that there was no basis to suspect foul play in her coroner’s inquiry findings released on Tuesday (April 21).

The coroner said that the clothing retailer, Urban Revivo, has removed all free-standing mirrors from its stores and secured others to the ground with screws or glue. 

Retail staff members have also been trained to look out for “risky behaviour” among customers, particularly young children, and alert their parents or caregivers to potential dangers.

The mirror in question had been designed “based on the behaviour of the reasonable customer”, and adults would apparently have found it difficult to accidentally push it over as it was quite heavy, the chief legal officer of Urban Revivo said during the inquiry hearing.

Jiaxin, a Chinese national, was in the store with her family and family friends on Aug 23 last year while waiting to fly home to Fujian, China, later that afternoon.

She was accompanied by her mother, grandmother and six-year-old brother. The other family of four similarly comprised a girl around Jiaxin’s age, a six-year-old boy, the children’s mother, and their grandmother.

The two grandmothers were browsing in the store while keeping an eye on the children who were playing and running around the shop, the state coroner said in her findings.

Jiaxin’s grandmother testified in the coroner’s court that she had tried to carry Jiaxin while the other children played in the store, but the girl refused to be held.

Closed-circuit television footage showed the two boys playing around a free-standing mirror. It was against a wall between two clothes racks.

Jiaxin’s brother squeezed behind the mirror through a narrow gap, with the other boy following suit. As the latter emerged from behind the mirror, it fell forward onto Jiaxin, who was standing in front of it.

The girl’s grandmother immediately rushed to lift it off her. She was taken to Changi General Hospital in an ambulance where she soon died from head injuries.

Urban Revivo’s chief legal officer gave evidence that the free-standing mirror in question was designed in the store’s headquarters in Guangzhou, China. 

It was almost 2m high, tilted at an 85-degree angle and weighed 166.5kg.

He added that the mirror was created specifically for the Jewel Changi Airport store and its design went through “various rounds of internal vetting” before it was approved for production.

The design team had considered its safety aspects and that “no reasonable adult” could have squeezed through the gaps behind the mirror. 

No other incident had been reported since the store opened about a month before the fatal accident happened.

When engineers tested the mirror prototype before production, mimicking the force of someone accidentally bumping into it, it did not fall or topple over.

“The mirror was assessed to fall forward only if a person used intentional or excessive force to push it forward or if it was shaken from the top. Hence, the mirror's height was set at 1.99m, which is taller than the average adult, making it unlikely for a person to push the mirror over from the top,” State Coroner Kamala noted.