Baby dead after horrific swooping magpie accident
A baby girl has died after her mum fell trying to avoid a swooping magpie in Brisbane’s southeast.
Paramedics rushed to Glindemann Park at Holland Park West on Sunday about midday following reports a woman fell while carrying her baby.
She had been trying to avoid a magpie swooping her.
A Queensland Police spokesman said a report is being prepared for the Coroner after the baby died shortly following arrival in hospital.
The baby was initially in a critical condition and the death is being treated as accidental.
A young couple, who did not wish to be named, told The Courier-Mail they tried to help the mum after hearing her screaming in the park.
They added the baby’s father was also in attendance and made calls to Triple-0.
The couple is still reeling from what they witnessed.
“We’ve struggled, it took me ages to get to sleep last night,” the woman in the couple told the paper.
Brisbane City Council standards chair Kim Marx told the ABC an exclusion zone has been set up and called what occurred in the park “extremely tragic”.
The bird has since been removed.
Sean Dooley from BirdLife Australia told the ABC only male magpies do the swooping and only 10 per cent of males actually swoop.
“The consequences, especially when people are caught unaware, can be truly terrifying and devastating," Mr Dooley said.
In 2019, an elderly man riding a bicycle died trying to avoid a magpie on the NSW South Coast.
The 76-year-old man was riding a pushbike on an off-road path alongside Nicholson Park at Woonona but crashed into a fence while trying to evade the bird.
He was hospitalised with serious head injuries and later died in hospital.
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