A MOTHER-of-three was left horrified when she discovered her three-year-old daughter had drank from a bathroom air freshener at her nursery.

Leanne Donnelly and the parents of a second child, believed to be a boy, were alerted after the incident in toilets at St Anne’s, in Blackburn, on Friday.

MORE TOP STORIES:

She said it was obvious to her that her daughter, Trudy Marsden, had consumed at least some of the fragranced liquid in a diffuser.

Mrs Donnelly initially contacted the medical advice line 111 and was advised to attend Royal Blackburn Hospital.

The family then faced a worrying six-hour wait, while Trudy was treated and kept under observation at the casualty department.

And while Trudy has so far not shown any ongoing ill-effects from the experience, her mother says she will be keeping her away from the Feilden Street nursery for the time being.

She said: “This diffuser should never have been there, from what I’ve been told, and it might have done her serious harm.

“She had to have an ECG and a number of tests while was at the hospital and we were told we had to keep monitoring her over the weekend. I’ll be keeping her off nursery for the next couple of days anyway.”

She described the diffuser as a small glass jar, filled with scent, which uses small reeds to fragrance rooms.

Trudy, whose brother Kirky Marsden, aged nine, and five-year-old sister Ivvy Marsden, also attend St Anne’s, had only been going to the nursery since the start of January.

Mrs Donnelly, of Heys Close, Livesey, said she wanted to highlight the issue so there was not a repeat in other Blackburn with Darwen schools.

In a statement, St Anne’s headteacher Jeff Brown said: “This was an unfortunate incident.

“Once it was discovered we contacted the children’s parents straight away.

“We then advised them to seek medical attention to make sure they were fully unharmed.

“We would like to make it very clear that the safety, wellbeing and happiness of all our pupils is of huge importance to us, and that an incident such as this will not happen again.

“A full health and safety audit of the early years department is going to be carried out at the earliest possible opportunity.”