Holy water cauldron puts toddler in hospital

The two-year-old son of an Italian family visiting a church in Spitz was hit by the 200 pound holy water cauldron and was seriously injured.

Police said that during the family’s visit to the parish church in Spitz in the Krems district of Lower Austria on Wednesday noon the little boy pulled himself up on the heavy holy water cauldron.

This seems to have broken the cauldron’s sandstone base measuring 40 centimetres, police reported. The marble tank fell to the ground and struck the child. The boy was taken to the regional hospital in Krems with serious leg injuries.

The Spitz parish priest Johann Gugler said he had not seen anything like this in his 22 years as a priest although sometimes children pulled themselves up onto the cauldron. He said: “The boy from Italy had a guardian angel. Had the cauldron fallen on him completely he would be dead.”

On Thursday Gugler visited the boy in hospital.